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 autumn of 1840, Charles Babbage arrived in Turin for a meeting of Italian scientists, where he gave the only public explanation of the workings of his “Analytical Engine.” This machine was the ...

Yesterday marked the anniversary of the 1871 death of Charles Babbage, the English mathematician and inventor credited with conceiving plans for the world's first programmable non-digital computer. It ...

Can you say "Yowza!" when discussing Victorian England? Let's hope so, because Sydney Padua's new book is definitely "Yowza!" material. Considering that its subject is math — math and the history of ...

IIIF provides researchers rich metadata and media viewing options for comparison of works across cultural heritage collections. Visit the IIIF page to learn more. This is a replica of the portion of a ...

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 ...

Modern computing is often effortless. You pick up a calculator or open the calculator app on your phone, and you’re on your way in seconds. But getting here took humans several centuries from when ...

This article was taken from the May 2011 issue of Wired magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by ...

For those who haven’t yet heard, a band of number-crunching nostalgists took the concept design for Charles Babbage’s Difference Engine No. 2, and turned it into a real, fully functional machine. But ...

IIIF provides researchers rich metadata and media viewing options for comparison of works across cultural heritage collections. Visit the IIIF page to learn more. You may know who Steve Jobs and Bill ...