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The analytical engine : the first computer

Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 11/08/2007 - 20:25.
  • Biographical
  • Computers/Information Technology
  • Exhibit
  • Images
  • Industrial/Military Technology
  • Mathematics
  • Modern (18th-20th Century)
  • Personal
  • Philosophy of Science
  • Primary Source
URL: 

http://www.fourmilab.ch/babbage/

Author: 
John Walker
Excerpt: 

These pages are an on-line museum celebrating Babbage's Analytical Engine. Here you will find a collection of original historical documents tracing the evolution of the Engine from the original concept through concrete design, ending in disappointment when it became clear it would never be built. You'll see concepts used every day in the design and programming of modern computers described for the very first time, often in a manner more lucid than contemporary expositions. You'll get a sense of how mathematics, science, and technology felt in the nineteenth century, and for the elegant language used in discussing those disciplines, and thereby peek into the personalities of the first computer engineer and programmer our species managed to produce. If you are their intellectual heir, perhaps you'll see yourself and your own work through their Victorian eyes.

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