Innovation stems from the minds of individuals who recognize a need and strive to develop a new way to fill it. One such innovation was the difference engine, an automatic mechanical calculator ...

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 ...

What a Difference the Difference Engine Made: From Charles Babbage’s Calculator Emerged Today’s Computer The incredible world of computers was born some 150 years ago, with a clunky machine ...

The history of computers began with primitive designs in the early 19th century and went on to change the world during the 20th century.

This photo depicts a section of the "Difference Engine," a mechanical calculator designed by Charles Babbage between 1823 and 1842, which many consider the first computer. Babbage never completed ...

Sure, you could go back to the 1820s and point to Charles Babbage's Difference Engine as the thing that started it all, but this pictorial timeline gives you a pretty definitive walkthrough of the ...

Today, two difference engines exist, one in Babbage’s London and the other at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California. It’s difficult to grasp the scale of the giant machine ...

Not too many people go to science museums and place orders, but former Microsoft CTO Nathan Myhrvold was apparently so impressed with the London Science Museum's replica of Charles Babbage's ...

Charles Babbage conceives of a "Difference Engine" in 1820 or 1821. It is a massive steam-powered mechanical calculator designed to print astronomical tables.

A missing link in tech historyFormer Microsoft executive Nathan Myhrvold became enthralled with a 19th-century computer, the Babbage Difference Machine, so he had one built.