The Difference Engine: Charles Babbage and the Quest to Build the First ComputerViking, 2001 - 342 páginas "In 1821 an inventor and mathematician, Charles Babbage, was poring over a set of mathematical tables. Finding error after error Babbage exclaimed, "I wish to God these calculations had been executed by steam." His frustration was not simply at the grindingly tedious labor of checking manually evaluated tables, but at their daunting unreliability. Science, engineering, construction, banking, and insurance depended on tables for calculation. Ships navigating by the stars relied on them to find their positions at sea." "Babbage launched himself on a grand venture to design and build mechanical calculating engines that would eliminate such errors. His bid to build infallible machines is a saga of ingenuity and will, which led beyond mechanized arithmetic into the entirely new realm of computing. Through Ada, Countess of Lovelace and daughter of Lord Byron, we gain tantalizing insights into how at least one Victorian glimpsed the promise of what was to come. Babbage springs out of history like a jack-in-the-box: a gentleman philosopher, a tireless inventor, a vigorous socialite, and a mesmerizing raconteur. "Mr. Babbage is coming to dinner" was a coup for any hostess." "Drawing on previously unused archival material, The Difference Engine is a tale of both Babbage's nineteenth-century quest to build a calculating engine and its twentieth-century sequel. For in 1991, Babbage's vision was finally realized, at least in part, by the completion at the Science Museum in London of the first full-sized Babbage engine, finished in time for the 200th anniversary of Babbage's birth. The two quests are mutually illuminating and are recounted here by the then Curator of Computing, Doron Swade - one of the main protagonists of the successful resumption of Babbage's extraordinary work."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved |
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Página 173
... Difference Engine . The complexity of the Analytical Engine had forced him to ruthlessly reduce the mechanisms to their simplest form , and the economies demanded by the designs suggested simpler and more ... Engine 173 THE ANALYTICAL ENGINE.
... Difference Engine . The complexity of the Analytical Engine had forced him to ruthlessly reduce the mechanisms to their simplest form , and the economies demanded by the designs suggested simpler and more ... Engine 173 THE ANALYTICAL ENGINE.
Página 225
... Difference Engine No. 2 sur- vive intact , but the designs show no sign of later revision . It seems that Babbage the perfectionist was at last satisfied , and the design was spared improvement . But would building a Difference Engine ...
... Difference Engine No. 2 sur- vive intact , but the designs show no sign of later revision . It seems that Babbage the perfectionist was at last satisfied , and the design was spared improvement . But would building a Difference Engine ...
Página 334
... 316-18 ; interest in ciphers , 182-3 ; interest in tables and publication of logarithms table , 9-10 , 50-2 ; inventions designed , 177-83 ; lectures on astronomy , 25 ; ' limitation of technology ' thesis 334 THE DIFFERENCE ENGINE.
... 316-18 ; interest in ciphers , 182-3 ; interest in tables and publication of logarithms table , 9-10 , 50-2 ; inventions designed , 177-83 ; lectures on astronomy , 25 ; ' limitation of technology ' thesis 334 THE DIFFERENCE ENGINE.
Índice
The Tables Crisis | 9 |
A Personal Question | 32 |
Tragedy and Decline | 49 |
Página de créditos | |
Otras 21 secciones no se muestran.
Otras ediciones - Ver todo
The Difference Engine: Charles Babbage and the Quest to Build the First Computer Doron Swade Vista de fragmentos - 2002 |
The Difference Engine: Charles Babbage and the Quest to Build the First Computer Doron Swade,Charles Babbage Vista de fragmentos - 2001 |
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