Charles Babage is considered among the founders of computer science. In his life time, he designed and partially built a
Difference Engine. The Difference Engine was designed to be a mechanical calculator for solving polynomials using the
method of finite differences. Due to financials and other problems, this project was never completed in Babbage's lifetime (it was, however, built, two in fact, in recent years;
one is one display at the
Computer History Museum in San Jose.
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| Modern build of the Difference Engine |
The New York Times is reporting that
a project is underway to build Babbage's
Analytical Engine. The Analytical Engine was supposed to be a general purpose, programmable computer. Unlike the Difference Engine, plans for this machine are not complete. That, however, didn't stop
Ada Lovelace from 'programming' this computer, winning her the title of world's first computer programmer.
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| Plan for part of the Analytical Engine |
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| partial mock-up of Analytical Engine |
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