some historians to be the “father of computing.” The main reason was his Analytical
Engine, which is thought to be the true precursor of the modern computer.
One of his first ventures into calculating machines was the difference engine,
which was based on Johann Müller’s design and some of Thomas de Colmar’s Arith-
mometer features (for more information about both, see above). The idea was sound,
but the execution eventually lacked government funding, not to mention suffering
from disputes with the artisan who was making the parts for the machine. Not only
that, but Babbage’s ambitions may have caused the difference engine prototype to
come to a halt. Initially, he wanted the device to go to six decimal places and a second-
order difference; then he began planning for 20 decimal places and a sixth-order dif-
ference. This much-larger machine was an overwhelming concept for its time.
The abandonment of the difference engine did not stop Babbage, however. Again
approaching the government for funding, he promised to build what he called the
Analytical Engine, an improved device capable of any mathematical operation, effec-
tively making it a general purpose, programmable computer that used punch cards for
input. This new device would use a steam engine for power, and its gears would func-
tion like the beads of an abacus, with the main tasks of calculating and printing math-
ematical tables. For eight years, he attempted to get more money from the govern-
ment, but to no avail. He would never build his Analytical Engine.
Although the Analytical Engine was never completed in Babbage’s lifetime, his
son Henry Provost Babbage built the “mill” portion of the machine from his father’s 355
MATH IN COMPUTING
When was the calculating machine first mass produced?
B
etween the 1624 invention of Blaise Pascal’s calculating machine and 1820,
there were about 25 manufacturers of such devices. Because there were so
many—most had little funding and only one person involved—very few
machines were actually manufactured in any quantity.By 1820 the first calculating machine to be commercially successful and
produced in large numbers was the “Arithmometer.” Invented by Frenchman
Charles Xavier Thomas de Colmar (1785–1870) while he was serving in the
French army, it was based on a Leibniz’s “stepped drum” mechanism (see above).
Colmar’s machine used a simple system of counting gears and an automatic
carry (automatically shifting a 1 to the left when the sum of a certain column
was greater than 9). The technology of the times also helped catapult Colmar’s
success. Because it included springs and other machinery that offset the
momentum of moving parts, the Arithmometer stopped at a specific, intended
point, unlike what often happened with the older calculating machines.