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 ...

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 ...

In the 19th century, British mathematician Charles Babbage invented the “difference engine,” a mechanical computer that had an enormously complex arrangement of levers, ratchets and gears. Had this ...