Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

To: NicknamedBob

Cool.


12 posted on 08/14/2004 3:46:40 PM PDT by Darksheare (I'll bayonet your snowmen and beat you down with a chinese yo-yo!!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies ]


To: Darksheare; SunkenCiv

And a little more... (Regarding Charles Babbage)

"In 1821 Babbage invented an Engine to manufacture error-free mathematical tables, Difference Engine No.1, the world's first programmable automatic digital calculating machine, in which the only human intervention was the setting of the machine at the start of the production of a table and the turning of its handle."

"It was a machine embodying the mathematical principles of the Method of Differences using only mechanisms for addition repeated many times over."

It must be admitted, rather reluctantly, that this machine, and its later versions, never quite got into production in a way that made a significant impact on society -- but the mechanical design was correct in its application, and would have made an enormous "difference" in our histories had it been completed.

It was, literally, the first computer -- nearly two hundred years ago!!


13 posted on 08/14/2004 4:07:28 PM PDT by NicknamedBob (Kerry’s OTC Lt. Thomas W. Wright said, "three of us told him to leave.” He was VOTED OFF the island!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson