Babbage intended to design a machine with a repertoire of the four basic arithmetic functions, in contrast with the Difference Engine, which uses only addition.

When I was in college, several decades ago, I relied heavily on a computational device called a slide rule and on a little, paperbound handbook of mathematical and scientific tables. I occasionally ...

This is a working Difference Engine No. 2 at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Calif. Charles Babbage designed a Difference Engine, which is one of the earliest computation machines — some ...

A small number of digital computing machines computed and printed mathematical tables by finding successive values of a function using a mathematical technique known as the method of finite ...

He proposed to estimate the value of functions using polynomials, and to use the method of finite distances to compute results. Babbage never completed either a difference engine or a more complex, ...

Considering all its gears and cranks, the difference engine might not look like a computer, but it functions in exactly the same way. Let's take a closer look.

IT'S a question that's bothered cultural critics for decades: while we know more than ever, are we getting dumber as a result of the increasing amount of technology at our disposal? Reading historical ...

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 ...