Computer Systems Laboratory Colloquium
4:15PM, Wednesday, March 3, 1999
NEC Auditorium, Gates Computer Science Building B03
"It will not slice a pineapple"
The construction of Charles Babbage's Calculating Engine
Doron Swade
Science Museum, London
About the talk:
Charles Babbage is widely celebrated as the first pioneer of the computer.
The designs for his vast mechanical calculating engines are one of the
startling intellectual achievement of the last century. Babbage is equally
famous for two things: he invented computers and failed to build them. The
reasons for his failures are still hotly debated today and the tale of his
woes has become a modern parable. But in the absence of a demonstrably
working machine, doubt has clouded his reputation. Was Babbage an
impractical dreamer, or a designer of the highest calibre? Could his engines
have been built in the last century, and if so, would they have worked? The
Science Museum built a complete Babbage engine from original designs in
time for the bicentenary in 1991 of Babbage's birth. This presentation will
describe the project and how it has revised our historical perception of the
great inventor.
About the speaker:
Doron Swade is Senior Curator (Computing and Information Technology) at
the Science Museum in London. He is an electronics engineer and an
historian of computing. He has published widely on the history of computing
and on curatorship, and written three books, two on Charles Babbage and
one (co-authored) on the Information Age. His third book, `The Cogwheel
Brain', is due out in October this year. Swade masterminded the
construction of Bababge's Difference Engine No. 2 completed at the Science
Museum on 1991, the bicentenary of Babbage's birth.
Contact information:
Doron Swade
c/o Len Shustek
160 Cherokee Way
Portola Valley, CA 94028
(650) 851-3176
(650) 851-5916
d.swade@ic.ac.uk