As you might expect from its name, the "Difference Engine" is a strangely difficult object to describe. You might start by imagining the side of a large crib with uprights ringed by small metal wheels ...

The Babbage Engine Exhibit opens May 10 at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Calif. The central artifact of the exhibit, a faithful construction of Englishman Charles Babbage's Difference ...

Charles Babbage 17911871 computer pioneer designed the first automatic computing engines He invented computers but failed to build them The first complete Babbage Engine was completed in London in ...

Difference Engine A numerical table is a tool designed to save the time and labor of those engaged in computing work. The oldest tables which are preserved, were compiled in Babylon in the period 1800 ...

Ada Lovelace, the pioneering mathematician of the 19th century, dreamed of machines that could do more than calculate. She ...

A note on the value of money in the nineteenth century -- pt. 1. The difference engine -- ch. 1. The tables crisis -- ch. 2. A personal question -- ch. 3. Tragedy and decline -- ch. 4. Miracles and ...