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It's the first step in computing.
The Babbage Difference Engine was the first digital computer ever designed. It weighs nearly 5 tons and doesn't use electricity. See it Now.
Until May, 2009, the American public will be able to see one of only two ever made, on display inside the Computer History Museum in Silicon Valley. "The machine works exactly as Babbage intended. There's not a single logical design flaw in the entire design," says its builder Doron Swade. "That's 8,000 parts."
And 248 gears of iron, brass and steel.
It was designed by British mathematician Charles Babbage in 1822, but never built. Swade says of Babbage, "He's famous for two things: inventing computers, and failing to build them."So, Swade persuaded his Museum of Science in London to complete Babbage's work. And as Senior Curator of Computing, he oversaw its construction as Director of the Babbage Project. It's called a difference engine because it doesn't multiply; it only adds. That doesn't mean it's a glorified abacus.
"No!", laughs Swade."It is the first successful transference of intelligence to machine."
The device solves complex polynomial equations like this one mechanically:
And it does so more precisely than any handheld calculator. It cannot calculate the value of a polynomial without some initial value set by the operator. (That would require multiplication.) Its final product is a trigonometric table for use in navigation and artillery — one new value every 6 seconds.
How similar is this to a modern microprocessor? Think of the crank at one end as the on switch. Beneath that, a stack of cams acts like the microprogram that controls the operation of all the other parts. Think of the tall brass stacks of 31 rotating gears, as digital registers. They store and change the numbers during the calculations. And there is a display, of sorts, too. All of the results are displayed at the opposite end in 3 ways: First, one stack of gears acts like the on-screen display. Second, it prints the results on paper, and below that it stamps into soft metal something that a typesetter can use.
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