MONIAC Computer

The Moniac ( Monetary National Income Analogue Computer ) also known as the Phillips Hydraulic Computer or Financephalograph is the cash flow simulated by a national economy, an analog computer, which means water flows ( fluidics ). The computer was designed in 1949 by New Zealand economist and inventor Alban W. Phillips and assembled while Phillips was a student at the London School of Economics ( LSE). Approximately fourteen copies of the Moniac were built.

Operation

The Moniac could perform complex calculations, which could not be processed by other computers on the time. Various water tanks simulated households, business, government, export and import. The calculations were based on assumptions of Keynesian and classical economics.

Existing copies

Original MONIACs are currently in the following locations:

  • The prototype is at the Economics Department of the University of Leeds, UK
  • Science Museum in London, United Kingdom
  • Faculty of Economics and Politics at Cambridge University, United Kingdom
  • Harvard Business School, United States
  • Roosevelt College, United States
  • Giblin Eunson Library of the University of Melbourne, Australia
  • Faculty Of Economics at the University of Istanbul, Turkey
  • Reserve Bank of New Zealand Museum on loan from the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research, New Zealand.
  • Erasmus University Rotterdam
  • Central Bank of Guatemala
  • Ford Motor Company

2005 a replica of the computer was made in the Central Bank of Guatemala and has since been in the Wattis Institute of the California College of the Arts, San Francisco.

Science Museum, London University of Cambridge Digital Object Identifier
579571
de