The Difference Engine

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Eric Roberts Handout #3 CS 54N October 3, 2016 The Difference Engine Babbage’s Machines The Difference Engine Charles Babbage is one of the most fascinating figures in the history of computing. Captivated by the idea that he could produce mathematical tables “by steam,” Babbage designed two early computing machines—the Difference Engine and the vastly more powerful Analytical Engine—that anticipated many of the features found in modern computers. Neither machine was completed within Babbage’s lifetime. The Eric Roberts Science Museum in London made a full-scale replica of the Difference CS 54N Charles Babbage (1791-1871) Engine for the bicentennial of October 3, 2016 Babbage’s birth in 1991. The Difference Engine Prototype Calculating with Differences Babbage completed a working Suppose that you want to produce a table of squares: model of his Difference Engine, which he had on display at his 02 12 22 32 42 52 62 72 82 92 popular soirées in London. The model on the left was given 0 1 4 9 16 25 36 49 64 81 to the London Science Museum by Babbage’s son. first differences 1 3 5 7 9 1 1 13 15 17 second differences 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 Note that the second differences are constant. Exercises for the Difference Engine Ada Byron, The First Programmer (a) How would you program the Difference Engine to produce a Augusta Ada Byron, the daughter of the table of cubes: English poet Lord Byron and his wife Anne, was encouraged to pursue her 03 13 23 33 43 53 63 73 83 93 interests in science and mathematics at a 0 1 8 27 64 125 216 343 512 729 time when few women were allowed to study those subjects. At the age of 17, Ada met Charles Babbage and became (b) How would you program the Difference Engine to calculate fascinated by his machines. Ada was the terms in the sequence generated by the following convinced of the potential of Babbage’s polynomial: Analytical Engine and wrote extensive notes on its design, along with several f(x) = x2 – 5x + 10 complex mathematical programs that have led many people to characterize her as the first programmer. In 1980, the U.S. Department of Defense named the Augusta Ada Byron, Lady Lovelace (1815–1852) programming language Ada in her honor. .

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Analytical Engine, 1838 ALLAN G
Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine, 1838 ALLAN G. BROMLEY Charles Babbage commenced work on the design of the Analytical Engine in 1834 following the collapse of the project to build the Difference Engine. His ideas evolved rapidly, and by 1838 most of the important concepts used in his later designs were established. This paper introduces the design of the Analytical Engine as it stood in early 1838, concentrating on the overall functional organization of the mill (or central processing portion) and the methods generally used for the basic arithmetic operations of multiplication, division, and signed addition. The paper describes the working of the mechanisms that Babbage devised for storing, transferring, and adding numbers and how they were organized together by the “microprogrammed” control system; the paper also introduces the facilities provided for user- level programming. The intention of the paper is to show that an automatic computing machine could be built using mechanical devices, and that Babbage’s designs provide both an effective set of basic mechanisms and a workable organization of a complete machine. Categories and Subject Descriptors: K.2 [History of Computing]- C. Babbage, hardware, software General Terms: Design Additional Key Words and Phrases: Analytical Engine 1. Introduction 1838. During this period Babbage appears to have made no attempt to construct the Analytical Engine, Charles Babbage commenced work on the design of but preferred the unfettered intellectual exploration of the Analytical Engine shortly after the collapse in 1833 the concepts he was evolving. of the lo-year project to build the Difference Engine. After 1849 Babbage ceased designing calculating He was at the time 42 years o1d.l devices.
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A Bibliography of Publications By, and About, Charles Babbage
A Bibliography of Publications by, and about, Charles Babbage Nelson H. F. Beebe University of Utah Department of Mathematics, 110 LCB 155 S 1400 E RM 233 Salt Lake City, UT 84112-0090 USA Tel: +1 801 581 5254 FAX: +1 801 581 4148 E-mail: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] (Internet) WWW URL: http://www.math.utah.edu/~beebe/ 08 March 2021 Version 1.24 Abstract -analogs [And99b, And99a]. This bibliography records publications of 0 [Bar96, CK01b]. 0-201-50814-1 [Ano91c]. Charles Babbage. 0-262-01121-2 [Ano91c]. 0-262-12146-8 [Ano91c, Twe91]. 0-262-13278-8 [Twe93]. 0-262-14046-2 [Twe92]. 0-262-16123-0 [Ano91c]. 0-316-64847-7 [Cro04b, CK01b]. Title word cross-reference 0-571-17242-3 [Bar96]. 1 [Bab97, BRG+87, Mar25, Mar86, Rob87a, #3 [Her99]. Rob87b, Tur91]. 1-85196-005-8 [Twe89b]. 100th [Sen71]. 108-bit [Bar00]. 1784 0 [Tee94]. 1 [Bab27d, Bab31c, Bab15]. [MB89]. 1792/1871 [Ynt77]. 17th [Hun96]. 108 000 [Bab31c, Bab15]. 108000 [Bab27d]. 1800s [Mar08]. 1800s-Style [Mar08]. 1828 1791 + 200 = 1991 [Sti91]. $19.95 [Dis91]. [Bab29a]. 1835 [Van83]. 1851 $ $ $21.50 [Mad86]. 25 [O’H82]. 26.50 [Bab51a, CK89d, CK89i, She54, She60]. $ [Enr80a, Enr80b]. $27.95 [L.90]. 28 1852 [Bab69]. 1853 [She54, She60]. 1871 $ [Hun96]. $35.00 [Ano91c]. 37.50 [Ano91c]. [Ano71b, Ano91a]. 1873 [Dod00]. 18th $45.00 [Ano91c]. q [And99a, And99b]. 1 2 [Bab29a]. 1947 [Ano48]. 1961 Adam [O’B93]. Added [Bab16b, Byr38]. [Pan63, Wil64]. 1990 [CW91]. 1991 Addison [Ano91c]. Addison-Wesley [Ano90, GG92a]. 19th [Ano91c]. Addition [Bab43a]. Additions [Gre06, Gre01, GST01].
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Ada Lovelace the first Computer Programmer 1815 - 1852
Ada Lovelace The first computer programmer 1815 - 1852 Biography Ada Lovelace Day I Born on December 10th, 1815 in London as Augusta Ada Byron Each second Tuesday in October is Ada Lovelace Day. A day to raise the I Parents separated when she was a baby profile of women in science, technology, engineering, and maths to create new role models for girls and women in these fields. During this day the I Father Lord Byron was a poet and died when she was 8 years old accomplishments of those women are celebrated. I Mother Lady Wentworth was a social reformer I Descended from a wealthy family I Early interest in mathematics and science, encouraged by her mother Portrait I Obtained private classes and got in touch with intellectuals, e.g. Mary Sommerville who tutored her and later introduced Lovelace to Charles Babbage at the age of 17 I Married in 1835 William King at the age of 19, shortly after becoming the Countess of Lovelace I By 1839, she had given birth to 3 children I Continued studying maths, supported among others by Augustus De Morgan, a math professor in London who taught her via correspondence I In 1843, she published a translation of an Italian academic paper about Babbage's Analytical Engine and added her famous note section (see Contributions) I Died on November 27th, 1852 at the age of 36 Contributions I First computer programmer, roughly a century before the electronic computer I A two decade lasting correspondence with Babbage about his idea of an Analytical Engine I Developed an algorithm that would enable the Analytical Engine to calculate a sequence of Bernoulli numbers, unfortunately, the machine was never built I First person to realize the power of computer programs: Not only used for calculations with numbers I Combined arts and logic, calling it poetical science Figure 3:Ada Lovelace I First reflections about artificial intelligence, but she rejected the idea Bernoulli Numbers Quotes I Play an important role in several domains of mathematics, e.g.
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William Gibson Fonds
William Gibson fonds Compiled by Christopher Hives (1993) University of British Columbia Archives Table of Contents Fonds Description o Title / Dates of Creation / Physical Description o Biographical Sketch o Scope and Content o Notes File List Catalogue entry (UBC Library catalogue) Fonds Description William Gibson fonds. - 1983-1993. 65 cm of textual materials Biographical Sketch William Gibson is generally recognized as the most important science fiction writer to emerge in the 1980s. His first novel, Neuromancer, is the first novel ever to win the Hugo, Nebula and Philip K. Dick awards. Neuromancer, which has been considered to be one of the influential science fiction novels written in the last twenty-five years, inspired a whole new genre in science fiction writing referred to as "cyberpunk". Gibson was born in 1948 in Conway, South Carolina. He moved to Toronto in the late 1960s and then to Vancouver in the early 1970s. Gibson studied English at the University of British Columbia. He began writing science fiction short stories while at UBC. In 1979 Gibson wrote "Johnny Mnemonic" which was published in Omni magazine. An editor at Ace books encouraged him to try writing a novel. This novel would become Neuromancer which was published in 1984. After Neuromancer, Gibson wrote Count Zero (1986), Mona Lisa Overdrive (1988), and Virtual Light (1993). He collaborated with Bruce Sterling in writing The Difference Engine (1990). Gibson has also published numerous short stories, many of which appeared in a collection of his work, Burning Chrome (1986). Scope and Content Fonds consists of typescript manuscripts and copy-edited, galley or page proof versions of all five of Gibson's novels (to 1993) as well as several short stories.
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Science Fiction, Steampunk, Cyberpunk
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Analytical Engine: the Orig- Inal Computer
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Ada and the First Computer
Ada and the First Computer The collaboration between Ada, countess of Lovelace, and computer pioneer Charles Babbage resulted in a landmark publication that described how to program the world’s first computer by Eugene Eric Kim and Betty Alexandra Toole eople called Augusta Ada King’s father “mad and bad” for his wild ways, but he was better known as Lord Byron, the poet. Ada inherited her famous father’s P way with words and his zest for life. She was a beautiful, flirtatious woman who hobnobbed with England’s elite and who died at the youthful age of 36, the same age at which her father died. And like Byron, Ada is best known for something she wrote. In 1843 she published an influential set of notes that described Charles Babbage’s An- alytical Engine, the first automatic, general-purpose computing machine ever designed. Although the Analytical Engine was never built—largely because Babbage could not raise the funds for its construction—Ada’s notes included a program for using it to com- pute a series of figures called Bernoulli numbers [see box on page 78]. Ada’s notes established her importance in computer science, but her fascinating life and lineage—and her role as a female pioneer in a field in which women have always been notoriously underrepresented—have lately turned her into an icon. In addition to numerous biographies, she has inspired plays and novels written by the likes of such lu- minaries as Tom Stoppard and Arthur C. Clarke. Conceiving Ada, a movie loosely based on her life, was released by Fox Lorber in February.
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A Short History of Computing
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The Non-Native Language of Cyberpunk: from Retro-Diction to Pre-Diction and Back Again
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