*One of the many Gothic aspects of the Difference Engine was that the device, which was never successfully built, was never quite entirely dead, either. Babbage's youngest son, a career military ...

THE electronic computer, young as it is, has come to play a role in modern life something like that played in other times by the oracles of Greece and Rome. There is a widespread belief that if one ...

Why he's important: He's building a missing part in the history of the PC With more than 40,000 moving parts and at nearly five metres long, Charles Babbage's steam-powered Analytical Engine is ...

To most people, the phrase “electronic computer” conjures up a baffling maze of wires, transistors, magnetic tapes, punch cards, and the like, which can somehow or other be used to solve problems of ...

A programmable calculator designed by British scientist Charles Babbage. After his Difference Engine failed its test in 1833, Babbage started the design of the Analytical Engine in 1834. Developed in ...