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 ...

Charles Babbage is credited for designing and giving birth to the idea of the first automatic digital computer. During the mid-1830s, Charles developed plans for an Analytical Engine. Although it wasn ...

Created by Charles Babbage, the Analytical Engine was a general-purpose, completely program-controlled, mechanical digital computer with no human intervention. It was designed to be programmed using ...

Ada Lovelace, daughter of poet Lord Byron and mathematician Annabella Milbanke, became the world's first programmer in 1843 with her algorithm for Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine. Learning to ...

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 ...