Babbage's protocomputer - Differential machine №2

Great-grandfather of modern computers landed where the latest computers are designed and manufactured - in Silicon Valley.

The London Science Museum built two exact replicas of the Difference Machine # 2 according to the original project of Charles Babbage. Designed by Babbage between 1847 and 1849 and designed to calculate the values ​​of polynomials, the five-ton colossus, consisting of 8,000 parts, was built by a team of engineers by 2002. Work on it took 17 years.

Fully mechanical Differential machine can add 31-bit numbers and calculate polynomials up to the seventh order.
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The project of Difference Machine No. 2 included an absolutely original printing component, which, if Babbage could then realize his project, would be the first automatic typesetting machine in history. A printing device can either print results using ink or generate printing form. In doing so, it automatically formats the results into columns and uses two different font sizes.

Video - Doron Zuayd, former curator of the computer department of the London Museum of Science, "carries out the calculation" on the Difference Machine №2


The car, measuring more than 3 meters in length and more than 2 meters in height, will be on display until May 2009 at the Museum of Computer History, after which it will move to the home of former Microsoft Director Nathan Mirvold near Seattle. Mirvold headed the creation of the research division of Microsoft Research, participated as a sponsor in the project to recreate the Babbage machine and ordered a working copy of the machine for himself.

On Tuesday evening, at a private reception for a group of engineers and businessmen from Silicon Valley, Doron Swaid, a former computer curator at the London Science Museum, who led the reconstruction of the Babbage machine, unwrapped the handle and solemnly conducted a demo calculation. The machine successfully coped with the task, despite the severe shaking during the transatlantic flight.

Demonstrations will continue at scheduled lectures on the Babbage machine scheduled for the coming days.