Saturday, September 24, 2011

Babbage's Difference Engine…

Folks,


Charles Babbage (1791-1871) had ideas that were far ahead of his time. Had his Analytical Engine come to fruition in his lifetime it is entirely possible that computer science would have taken hold in the 1880s. He even saw its output as a printer. Recently, however, work has begun to digitize and open source his plans for the first computer, albeit a mechanical beast, of the industrial age.


The Babbage Difference Engine




The Greeks of 2,000 years ago, however, had already come up with the the Antikythera Mechanism, an ancient mechanical computer[1][2] designed to calculate astronomical positions.


Antikythera Mechanism

We are clever folks, but apparently too apt to forget, perhaps.


Hic Finis Est,


S