Your question reminds me of a russian humorous story somewhere from the 90s or early 00s. Called "Wooden Computational Machine", it describes an wooden computer

Your question reminds me of a russian humorous story somewhere from the 90s or early 00s. Called "Wooden Computational Machine", it describes an wooden computer created for the russian zar and the chaos that ensues. The author is called Maxim Samohvalov, but I couldn't find an english translation. If someone can find such, please, share.