Innovation stems from the minds of individuals who recognize a need and strive to develop a new way to fill it. One such innovation was the difference engine, an automatic mechanical calculator ...

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 wheels ...

Nineteenth-century computer pioneer Charles Babbage is taken back—via Lego. Andy Carroll, an apparently highly-skilled Lego builder and mathematician, created this functional mechanical computer, ...

An early calculator designed by Charles Babbage and subsidized by the British government. Employing wheels and rods, which others had experimented with earlier, the project was started in 1821 but ...