Babbage, Charles

The Difference Engine: Charles Babbage and the Quest to Build the First Computer

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One of the great accomplishments of the 19th century
Wonderful Engines
Doron Swade's Quest to Build a Difference Engine
History - What a story
Hard to follow

The Difference Engine: Charles Babbage and the Quest to Build the First Computer
Doron Swade
Manufacturer: Penguin (Non-Classics)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0142001449

Amazon.com's Best of 2001

What a difference a century makes. Doron Swade, technology historian and assistant director of London's Science Museum, investigates the troubles that plagued 19th-century knowledge engineers in The Difference Engine: Charles Babbage and the Quest to Build the First Computer.

The author is in a unique position to appreciate the technical difficulties of the time, as he led a team that built a working model of a Difference Engine, using contemporary materials, in time for Babbage's 1991 bicentenary. The meat of the book is comprised of the story of the first computing machine design as gathered from the technical notes and drawings curated by Swade. Though Babbage certainly had problems translating his ideas into brass, the reader also comes to understand his fruitless, drawn-out arguments with his funders. Swade had it comparatively easy, though his depictions of the frustrating search for money and then working out how best to build the enormous machine in the late 1980s are delightful.

It is difficult--maybe impossible--to draw a clear, unbroken line of influence from Babbage to any modern computer researchers, but his importance both as the first pioneer and as a symbol of the joys and sorrows of computing is unquestioned. Swade clearly respects his subject deeply, all the more so for having tried to bring the great old man's ideas to life. The Difference Engine is lovingly comprehensive and will thrill readers looking for a more technical examination of Babbage's career. --Rob Lightner

Book Description

In 1821 an inventor and mathematician named Charles Babbage was reviewing a set of mathematical tables. After finding an excess of errors in the results, he exclaimed, "I wish to God these calculations had been executed by steam." Thus began Babbage's lifelong enterprise to design and build a mechanical calculating engine-the world's first computer. Drawing on Babbage's original notes and designs, Doron Swade recounts both Babbage's nineteenth-century quest to build a calculating machine-the Difference Engine-and Swade's own successful attempt to build a replica for the bicentennial of Babbage's birth. Set against the tantalizing background of Victorian science and politics with a colorful cast of characters, The Difference Engine is a saga of ingenuity and will-and the dawning of a new age.

Customer Reviews:

One of the great accomplishments of the 19th century.......2005-08-01

Charles Babbage and John Herschel, the astronomer, were preparing tables for the astronomical society. They needed to check the work of computations by humans, by different computers. The need for tables was particulary important for navigators. The source of error in the tables was clear, human fallibility. The manual production of tables, calculation, transcription, typesetting, and proofreading created opportunities for error. The engine of change in 1821 was the steam engine. Charles Babbage wanted to produce a machine to produce error-free tables.

Babbage entered Trinity in 1810. He studied on his own the work of the French mathematicians. His father was a well-to-do London banker. Charles married and received from his father an allowance of three hundred pounds. In London he established himself in scientific circles. By the spring of 1822 he had a small working model of his first design. Computing devices of the time required manipulation and were limited as to the size of the numbers the devices could handle. Babbit first used the method of differences, addition, in his design. He sent a brief announcement to the Astronomical Society about his invention. He received a mandate from the government and was prepared to build a new machine. He hired Joseph Clement for precision engineering work. Clement and Babbage devised new tools and modified machines. There was a need to produce large numbers of similar parts. Babbage conceived of his machine when manufacturing was in transition. By 1826 Babbage was wholly absorbed in the design of his Difference Engine. The machine was eight feet by seven feet by three feet.

In 1826 Babbage published a book on life assurance. While traveling in Europe following the death of his wife, he learned of his election as Lucasian Professor of Mathematics. He never resided in Cambridge and gave no lectures. Babbage expressed a view on the decline of science In England. Undoubtedly science was more professional in Prussia and France. Babbage's position alienated some of his supporters. In 1832 part of the engine was put on display in his drawing room. Clement was to leave the project. Work was not resumed. The Treasury Department spent more than seventeen thousand pounds on it.

There is a curious affinity between mathematics, mind, and computing. After the break with Clement, Babbage moved from the Difference Engine to the Analytical Engine. He devised the first automatic mechanisms for multiplication and division. He had in fact designed a general purpose four function calculator. In 1836 he opted for punch cards to control the engine. The Analytical Engine was never built. Babbage worked in isolation. With the Analytical Engine Babbage was seduced by the intellectual quest.

After twenty years the Treasury axed the Difference Engine and wrote off the expense. Between 1846 and 1849 Babbage designed Difference Engine No. 2. Maurice Wilkins believed the Analytical Engine was one of the great accomplishments of the 19th century. The Science Museum in Britain built a version of the Difference Engine No. 2 for an exhibit on Babbage.

Wonderful Engines.......2002-09-16

This book has 2 basic parts. First, is the discussion of Babbage's life and his computing engines. Second, is the author's modern-day story of attempting to complete Babbage's Difference Engine, a feat which Babbage himself was unable to do. I picked up this book for the first part. I wanted to learn about Babbage and how his engines worked. While the author gives a wonderful account of Babbage's life and methodology, he does not clearly describe HOW these engines function. I realize that the engines are extremely complex, but a chapter on the functioning of the Difference Engine trial piece and some diagrams on its operations would have been much appreciated. Unfortunately, as were Babbage's contemporaries, we are left mainly in dark as to how simply turning a crank can produce the necessary additions. The author also never fully explains the "method of finite differences" upon which the function of the difference engine is based.

The most amazing part of the book is the overview of Babbage's design for the Analytical Engine- the first programmable computer. It is amazingly similar in concept to today's modern computers, but it uses motion through metal gears and cams, instead of electricity through logic gates and wires. I expected to be bored by the modern-day story, but I actually was interested in the process of reconstructing this 19th century machine. It was enlightening to see how the same problems Babbage faced 150 years before troubled engineers today.

Overall, I recommend this book for those curious about Babbage and his engines. However, the writing seems jerky and unorganized in parts, and there is little technical description of the engines' functionality.

Doron Swade's Quest to Build a Difference Engine.......2002-09-13

This is the first book I've read on Charles Babbage, but I imagine that there are others that are better. First, this book seems to assume you've already read a book or two about Babbage before. It almost has an apologetic tone and seems to be an answer to what, I assume, have been slights against Babbage and his work. Second, this book is as much about the author and his quest to build a Difference Engine as it is about Babbage himself. If you want to hear about dealing with office politics in an British museum, you may find this interesting.

All in all, this is a fairly dry read. It was interesting at points, but I certainly wouldn't recommend it for your first book on Babbage.

History - What a story.......2002-05-15

I enjoyed this book very much. It was refreshing to step away from the technical library and read more about the people, machines, trials, and triumphs that occured as far back as the early 1800's.

Though it all you learn about a man who had such vision. His execution could be faulted for many reasons. But in the end the machine works! I can not wait to see the Difference Engine myself someday.

Hard to follow.......2002-05-11

I bought this book hoping to gain a better knowledge of Charles Babbage and of course entertainment. The knowledge part was delivered but I found this book a very hard read. Do not expect to laugh occasionally because the story is very dry. The book also assumes that the reader is very familiar with British history, which I am not. From a factual standpoint it does deliver but its layout and the storyline make it an awful reference resource.

Glory and Failure: The Difference Engines of Johann Müller, Charles Babbage, and Georg and Edvard Sheutz (History of Computing)

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another failure, alongside Babbage and Lovelace
A glorius story about two almost unknown swedish inventors

Glory and Failure: The Difference Engines of Johann Müller, Charles Babbage, and Georg and Edvard Sheutz (History of Computing)
Michael Lindgren
Manufacturer: The MIT Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0262121468

Book Description

The first attempts to mechanize the production of numerical tables were remarkable in conception coming at a time when a "computer" was in fact a person rather than a machine. This book is the first to provide a unified picture of the difference engines that were the mechanical predecessors of today's digital computer, to emphasize them as part of the history of numerical tables, and to give equal weight to the technical and social aspects of their creation.

Lindgren analyzes the difference engines of Müller and Babbage and the mathematical principles on which they are based, tells the story of how Georg and Edvard Scheutz learned about Babbage's engine, discusses the design and operation of the Scheutzs' machine, and tells why Babbage failed technically and the Scheutzes failed commercially. The often detailed technical descriptions bring to light the inventors' own ways of thinking as work on the engines progressed

Michael Lindgren is Curator at the National Museum of Science and Technology in Stockholm.

Customer Reviews:

another failure, alongside Babbage and Lovelace.......2006-07-04

So it wasn't just Babbage. He is now belatedly well known. Considered to have built the first computer. Though it was never fully functional. But what Lindgren has uncovered is that around the same time, Muller and the Sheutzs in Sweden were trying roughly the same approach, independently of Babbage.

Both sides hit upon the idea of replacing a human with automated machinery, in a programmable fashion. The Swedes also seemed to have within themselves the equivalent talent of Ada Lovelace, in being able to devise software.

But both groups failed within their lifetimes. A bridge too far. At best, their efforts were seen as intellectual curiosities by their contemporaries. If anything, this research by Lindgren reinforces a common conclusion about Babbage's work. The Swedes' efforts can be seen roughly as a parallel experiment to Babbage. His failure is considered by us [20th-21st centuries] to be due to the primitive technology that he had to start with. The failure of the Swedes to commercialise their work suggests that it wasn't Babbage's fault that he failed. Or theirs that they failed.

It would be 90 years later, before economically viable machines could be made.

A glorius story about two almost unknown swedish inventors.......2001-09-03

The story of Georg and Edvard Scheutz is a well written and entertaining scientific book. A young schoolboy, Edvard Scheutz, succeeds in his kitchen to construct a difference engine that works better then that of the famous Charles Babbage. The story of how father and son struggle together to make their difference engine a profitable invention is incredibly interesteting both in a technical and economical aspect but also in a social aspect. Interesting is of course also why a genious invention like theirs becomes such a financial failure.
This is a book to read both for those who have a general interest in history of techology and for those who have a particular interest in swedish history and inventors.

Charles Babbage and the Story of the First Computer (Uncharted, Unexplored, and Unexplained) (Uncharted, Unexplored, and Unexplained)

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Charles Babbage and the Story of the First Computer (Uncharted, Unexplored, and Unexplained) (Uncharted, Unexplored, and Unexplained)
Josepha Sherman
Manufacturer: Mitchell Lane Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Library Binding

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ASIN: 1584153725

Book Description

In 1815, there weren't any computers. Electricity hadn't yet been discovered as a way to make things run. Calculating sums of numbers had to be done by hand. One mistake would mean adding everything up all over again. But English scientist Charles Babbage was planning to change all that. He planned to use his knowledge of mathematics and engineering to build a machine that would be able to work out the most complicated sums instantly. But someone would have to give it the right program to follow. Women weren't supposed to know mathematics in his day. But Ada, Countess of Lovelace, was one of the best mathematicians. She became the first computer programmer. And Charles Babbage could become the father of computing—if only he could overcome the biggest problem of all. It wasn't the lack of electric power. It wasn't the lack of modern equipment. Before he could succeed, Charles Babbage had to conquer the greatest problem of all—himself.

The Moore School Lectures (Charles Babbage Institute Reprint)

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The Moore School Lectures (Charles Babbage Institute Reprint)

Manufacturer: The MIT Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0262031094

Book Description

Volume 9 in the Babbage Reprint Series makes the Moore School Lectures (1946) available for the first time. Delivered by such notable engineers and scientists as J.P. Eckert, J. Mauchly, H. Goldstine, A.W. Burks, and J. von Neumann at the University of Pennsylvania as a direct response to crucial new developments in the design and construction of the early stored program computer, the ENIAC, the lectures provide a comprehensive overview of the history of computing devices and digital and analog computing mechanisms; machine elements, including arithmetic circuits and the Selectron; numerical mathematical methods; and a detailed presentation of the ENIAC, the parallel type EDVAC, and the serial acoustic binary EDVAC.

Babbage's calculating engines: A collection of papers (The Charles Babbage Institute reprint series for the history of computing)

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Babbage's calculating engines: A collection of papers (The Charles Babbage Institute reprint series for the history of computing)

Manufacturer: Tomash
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

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ASIN: 0938228048

Memoir of the Life and Labours of the Late Charles Babbage Esq. F.R.S. (Charles Babbage Institute Reprint)

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Memoir of the Life and Labours of the Late Charles Babbage Esq. F.R.S. (Charles Babbage Institute Reprint)
H. W. Buxton
Manufacturer: The MIT Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0262022699

Book Description

Written but never published during his lifetime, this memoir of the founding father of computing is an indispensable primary source of information about Babbage's personal character and work. It brings to light his astonishingly wide range of interests, from mathematics to political economy and social reform, and dispels the myth of an "irascible" and "eccentric" personality, helping to clarify Babbage's position in the history of science.

Buxton's memoir was written between 1872 and 1880 and is volume 13 in the Charles Babbage Institute Reprint Series for the History of Computing.

Ada, the Enchantress of Numbers: A Selection from the Letters of Lord Byron's Daughter and Her Description of the First Computer (The Pickering Masters)

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A great book

Ada, the Enchantress of Numbers: A Selection from the Letters of Lord Byron's Daughter and Her Description of the First Computer (The Pickering Masters)

Manufacturer: Critical Connection
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Binding: Hardcover

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Ada, the Enchantress of Numbers: Prophet of the Computer Age
The Bride of Science: Romance, Reason, and Byron's Daughter

ASIN: 0912647094

Customer Reviews:

A great book.......2000-06-12

A very pleasant biography in an original format, allowing for a good understanding of the main character. Typical american biography, where few details are untold, and where the author remains "transparent". We have to assume that B.A.Toole likes Ada, since she wrote a book about her, but we can't figure out why: was it beause she was Byron's daughter, or because she was Babbage's assistant, or because she lived an interesting life, or because she worked on early computers, or for any other reason... It might be a quality of good biographers, but as a French guy, I like to feel a greater intimacy between the autobiographer and the central character. A small disappointment: the lack of details regarding Ada's program for computing Bernouilli's numbers. Having computed some of those by myself, I know what an advantage it is to have at one's disposal a good algorithm to shorten fastidious calculations. In Toole's book, those numbers are barely mentioned, and the chapter 12, even though revised by an US Army colonel,doesn't explain why the Dept of Defense has chosen the ADA language. This having ben said, I took a great pleasure in reading a book which taught me a lot, even if Toole is too discreet on "an affair" that young Ada had when she was 17 years old with one of her preceptors (the great Turner?). Again the French side in me would have liked more details on that topic... Iconography is nice and all graphics are useful. All in all, a very good book to be read by all those who feel interested by an extraordinary woman who remains too little known by the general public.

Le Calcul Simplifié: Graphical and Mechanical Methods for Simplifying Calculation (Charles Babbage Institute Reprint)

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Le Calcul Simplifié: Graphical and Mechanical Methods for Simplifying Calculation (Charles Babbage Institute Reprint)
Maurice d'Ocagne
Manufacturer: The MIT Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0262150328

Book Description

In the days before the sophisticated mechanical esk calculator and the later electronic devices, d'Ocagne's nomograms were highly regarded methods for performing calculations. This first translation of d'Ocagne's Le Calcul Simplifié makes a classic work on the early art of computation available to historians of computer science.

Le Calcul Simplifié, first published in the early 1890s, is volume 11 in the Charles Babbage Institute Reprint Series.

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Slow and inaccurate
Great premise, but...
engaging and intriguing read
An Unforgettable Adventure

Shooting the Sun
Max Byrd
Manufacturer: Bantam
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Binding: Hardcover

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Grant: A Novel
Jefferson
Jackson
When the Lion Feeds

ASIN: 0553802089
Release Date: 2003-12-30

Book Description

Charles Babbage was an English genius of legendary eccentricity. He invented the cowcatcher, the ophthalmoscope, and the “penny post.” He was an expert lock picker, he wrote a ballet, he pursued a vendetta against London organ-grinders that made him the laughingstock of Europe. And all his life he was in desperate need of enormous sums of money to build his fabled reasoning machine, the Difference Engine, the first digital computer in history.

To publicize his Engine, Babbage sponsors a private astronomical expedition—a party of four men and one remarkable woman—who will set out from Washington City and travel by wagon train two thousand miles west, beyond the last known outposts of civilization. Their ostensible purpose is to observe a total eclipse of the sun predicted by
Babbage’s computer, and to photograph it with the newly invented camera of Louis Daguerre.

The actual purpose, however…

Suffice it to say that in Shooting the Sun nothing is what it seems, eclipses have minds of their own, and even the best computer cannot predict treachery, greed, and the fickle passions of the human heart.

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Charles Babbage was an English genius of legendary eccentricity. He invented the cowcatcher, the ophthalmoscope, and the "penny post." He was an expert lock picker, he wrote a ballet, he pursued a vendetta against London organ-grinders that made him the laughingstock of Europe. And all his life he was in desperate need of enormous sums of money to build his fabled reasoning machine, the Difference Engine, the first digital computer in history.

To publicize his Engine, Babbage sponsors a private astronomical expedition -- a party of four men and one remarkable woman -- who will set out from Washington City and travel by wagon train two thousand miles west, beyond the last known outposts of civilization. Their ostensible purpose is to observe a total eclipse of the sun predicted by Babbage's computer, and to photograph it with the newly invented camera of Louis Daguerre.

The actual purpose, however...

Suffice it to say that in Shooting the Sun nothing is what it seems, eclipses have minds of their own, and even the best computer cannot predict treachery, greed, and the fickle passions of the human heart.

<hr>

"An engaging travelogue along the old Santa Fe Trail, served up with plenty of authentic frontier detail."
   PUBLISHERS WEEKLY</p><hr>

Customer Reviews:

Slow and inaccurate.......2005-02-05

Max Byrd's novel contains more research than drama, and unfortunately not all the research is accurate. At the end of Chapter 12 and the beginning of Chapter 13, he has his heroine Selena, a daguerrotypist accompanying an expedition to make a record of an eclipse in the southwestern US in 1839, make a demonstration of her work. She exposes her plate for ten minutes, which is accurate and then removes the copper plate from her camera, preparing to develop it. Unfortunately, the plate is miraculously transformed into a glass plate (not to appear in photography until the advent of ambrotypes, some years later)before the image is formed. I hoped very much to be informed and entranced by this book, with its cover blurbs promising involvement with Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace, inventors of the first computer. Unfortunately, Babbage and Lovelace make only cameo appearances, and the novel's main characters tend to blur together, except for Selena, a product of a French father and American mother. The research was, as I say, ambitious but flawed.

Great premise, but..........2005-01-29

In selecting as his subject a fictional trek across the early American West, Max Byrd took a step away from his habit of writing about presidents, as he did in Jefferson, Grant, and Jackson. It seems, however, that he's not as adept without the unifying theme of the great man.

The jacket copy convinced me to move this one to the top of my reading list--it's got Charles Babbage, the pre-computer computer-maker, eccentric extrordinaire, and a wild cast of characters. Babbage's business partner arranges for an expedition to, ostensibly, observe a solar eclipse which will, incidentally, prove the worth of Babbage's machine.

There's a great book in a premise like that one, but Byrd didn't write it. There's a lot about squabbling among the expeditioners; there's a lot about people convinced and unconvinced of Babbage's wisdom and his machine's value. Ultimately, the novel tries to cover so much--1830s Britain; early computing machines; 1830s Washington, D.C.; hostile Natives in the West--that Byrd's 300 pages can't cover it all. Another 100 pages may have been enough to make this a compelling historical novel; as it is, I strongly recommend reading Byrd's "Jackson" instead. It's a longer, more specific novel on roughly the same time period, and it's much more expertly executed.

engaging and intriguing read.......2004-07-25

Shooting the Sun follows a group in 1840 as they head out on the Santa Fe trail to try and photograph for the first time (actually a more advanced form of daguerreotype) a solar eclipse so as to prove the effectiveness of Charles Babbage's prototype "difference engine", an early "computer" used to predict the timing and place of the eclipse. The proof will then allow Babbage to garner more funds to continue to develop his early calculator. The group is made up of Selena Cott, the young female astronomer/photographer who must overcome the obvious hurdle of her gender; William Pryce, Babbage's financial adviser and a man who has his own reasons for coming along; the expert explorer who sees no place for a woman in the wild; the young artist who scoffs at photography's ability to do any more than capture the sterile surface; the expert astronomer who is threatened both by technology and feminism; and the gruff wagon leader who tries to get them to Santa Fe alive past rough frontier folk, prairie fires, hostile natives, equipment prone to breakdown, their own infighting, and the sheer lost loneliness of the west. Added to the mix in shifts of perspective and geography are Babbage himself as he wends his way through London society and finance and his uncle Richard, who is thought to be dead (though not officially meaning Babbage can't claim his estate) but is actually alive and living with the natives out west.
The characters are strongly portrayed in sharp human detail and grow with the book and their experiences, rather than remaining static creations. Relationships form and erode, trust is offered and broken, strengths and weaknesses are transformed. The journey itself is meticulously detailed and conveys both the sheer wonder and sheer terror of such a journey at the time. One understands clearly both the travails and the reward.
There is a rich mixture of personal conflict over culture, gender, generation, philosophy, sexuality, professionalism, and art. This, combined with the early hints that not everything is as it seems and that some of the characters are carrying secrets creates a wonderful tension throughout the entire work.
The book succeeds in many ways, as history, as travelogue, as character exploration, even as a mystery/suspense novel (though to a lesser extent). By the end, you're sorry to have the journey come to a close. A strong recommendation.

An Unforgettable Adventure.......2004-01-20

Byrd has created a thrilling story, rich with historical details and unexpected twists, and I had a hard time putting it down. This is a wonderfully crafted novel and one that continues to play in your imagination after the last page is read. TERRIFIC and highly recommended!!

Charles Babbage on the Principles and Development of the Calculator and Other Seminal Writings

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Charles Babbage on the Principles and Development of the Calculator and Other Seminal Writings
Charles Babbage
Manufacturer: Dover Pubns
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0486246914

Amazon.com

As of late 1996, this is the most readily available collection of writings of Charles Babbage, the discoverer of the principles on which all modern computing machines are based. Includes passages from his autobiography, and more technical writings about his "Difference Engine" (the subject of a great science fiction novel by Bruce Sterling), an essay on lockpicking (proving that the MIT hackers of the 1950s were not the precedent-setters they might think!), and even uniquely 19th-century passages such as a descrition of how he transported six blind salamanders while travelling around Europe. An essential volume for anyone seriously interested in the history of the computer.

Computer Pioneers:

Computer Pioneers

Computer Pioneers