Hey, Babbage!
Largely unknown outside of computer circles, the life of 19th Century British mathematician Charles Babbage has long stood as a tableau of the failed visionary. His Calculating Machines were based on the technologies of the time – hard for him to imagine any others. Steam was to power the machine, and the inner cogs and connections, bearing some resemblance to precedent Pascaline and Jaquard loom, were beyond the capabilities of machining of the era. Babbage's work, which began in the 1830s, did not get off the drawing board because the required precision machine was yet to come, and because the very major effort needed lacked funds. He and his wife, Ada Lovelace tried – of course. Babbage died in 1871, willing his papers to his brother. The automation in the turn of the (19th) century's U.S. Census Bureau effort is often cited as reflective of Babbage's work, which found currency in science and technology via this notebooks. Replicas of some Babbage machinery have been b...