A quiz question · hard
When was Babbage's Difference Engine No. 2 finally built to his 1849 specifications?
The Science Museum London built a working Difference Engine No. 2 in 1991 — 120 years after Babbage's death. It uses 8,000 parts and 1840s-tolerance metalworking. The reconstruction proved the original technology had been adequate.
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The Cambridge Mathematician Who Designed Two Computing Engines in the 1820s and 1830s and Built Neither of Them in His Lifetime Charles Babbage received approximately £17,500 of British government funding between 1823 and 1842 to build the Difference Engine, a brass mechanical calculator for producing accurate mathematical tables. He never finished it. His subsequent Analytical Engine (1837) was a general-purpose programmable computer that he also never built. A complete Difference Engine No. 2 to his original 1849 specifications was built by the Science Museum London in 1991 and works.
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