Morrison P., Morrison E. (eds.) Charles Babbage and His Calculating Engines

Dover Publications, 1961. - 438 Pages. ISBN: 0486200124Although Charles Babbage's complex calculating machines were unique in their time, there is no full description of them. Instead, Babbage, who preferred to spend his time on design and construction, collected the various contemporary writings on his work and when he died, his son completed the collection. These assembled papers discuss Babbage's Difference Engine, which he invented in 1821 to solve the practical problem of finding a means to reliably compute the many tables needed for navigation, and his Analytical Engine, which anticipated the logical conceptions of modern digital computers.