Part II (The Computer of the 19th Century)

When was the automatic computer invented? In the 1930s or the 1940s? If you think that, you are only off by a hundred years. A computer that was completely modern in conception was designed by Charles Babbage, the English mathematician, in the 1830s. But, as with the calculators of Pascal and Leibniz, the mechanical technology of that time was not prepared to realize the conception.

The idea of mechanical calculating mathematical tables first came to Babbage in 1812 or 1813. The mathematical tables of the 19^th century – especially, logarithm tables used in navigation – were full of mistakes. The errors could be a life-and-death matter for sailors at sea. Babbage wanted to automate the production of the tables to ensure their accuracy.

According to one story, Babbage was lamenting over¹ the errors in some tables to his friend Herschel, a famous astronomer. "I wish to God these calculations had been executed by means of steam." Babbage said. "It is quite possible," Herschel responded. (At that time, steam was a new and unexplored source of energy.)

Babbage decided to build a machine that could not only calculate the tables automatically but could print them as well. He called this machine the Difference Engine², since it worked by solving difference equations. Nevertheless, the name isn't correct, as the machine created tables by means of repeated³ additions, not subtractions. (The word engine, by the way, comes from the same root as ingenious⁴. Originally it meant a clever invention. Only later, it came to mean a source of power.)

In 1823,Babbage turned to the British government to fund development. He obtained one of the first government grants for research and technological development anywhere in the world.

Babbage approached the project very seriously: he hired a machinist, set up a fireproof workshop, and built a dust-proof environment for testing the device. The full engine, however, was never built, at least not by Babbage. The government stopped financing the project. Joseph Clement, the machinist responsible for actually building the machine, refused to continue unless he was prepaid. In 1833, Babbage abandoned the project. (In 1854, by the way, a Swedish printer built a working Difference Engine based on Babbage's ideas.)

Figure 5. Babbage's Difference Engine

The Difference Engine is considered by many to be a direct forerunner of the modern computer. The photograph (See Figure 5) shows a small portion of the ingenious machine, which is now on exhibition at the Science Museum in London.

While working on the Difference Engine, Babbage began to invent ways to improve it. Inspired by Jacquard punched-card-controlled loom, he had devised something far more revolutionary: a general-purpose computing machine called the Analytical Engine⁵. It was the first programmable computer, complete with punched cards for data input.

Babbage's design was grandiose. The Difference Engine could only compute tables (and only those tables that could be computed by repeated additions). But the Analytical Engine could perform any calculation, just as Jacquard's loom could weave any pattern. The machine consisted of four basic components: the mill⁶, the store, the card reader and the printer. These units are the essential elements of each computer today. The mill was the calculating unit, analogous to the CPU in a modern computer; the store was where data were held prior to processing, exactly analogous to memory and storage in today's computers; the reader and the printer were the input and output devices.

The store was to be large enough to hold 1,000 50-digit numbers. This was larger than the storage capacity of any computer built before 1960. The locomotive-sized machine was powered by steam. It included more than 50,000 moving parts.

Babbage planned for his machine to do calculations with fifty-digit accuracy. This is far greater than the accuracy found in most modern computers and far more than is needed for most calculations. If the Analytical Engine had been completed, it would have been a 19th-century computer.

Babbage worked on the Analytical Engine for nearly 40 years. But, alas, the machine was not completed. The government had already invested thousands of pounds into the Difference Engine and received nothing in return. It didn't want to repeat its mistake.

Among those who were fascinated with Babbage's invention was a young woman named Augusta Ada King, Countess Lovelace. She was the only legitimate daughter of the famous English poet Lord Byron. She was a brilliant mathematician. She believed and fully realized the potentialities of the Analytical Engine. Ada took an active part in Babbage's experiments and even developed the demonstration program for the Analytical Engine in 1842. For this reason, she is recognized as the world’s first computer programmer.

Notes:¹tolamentover– сокрушаться, сетовать(по поводу чего-л.);

²DifferenceEngine– разностная машина;

³repeated– итеративное [многократное];

⁴ingenious– оригинальный, хитроумный;

⁵AnalyticalEngine– аналитическая машина;

⁶mill–зд.вычислительный блок.

EXERCISES

Ex. 20. Search the text for the equivalents of the following phrases:

1. подготовить почву, прокладывать путь;

2. самое быстродействующее вычислительное устройство;

3. представляет из себя прямоугольную рамку с параллельными спицами;

4. быстрый и лёгкий способ возведения в степень;

5. шестизначные числа;

6. налоговый инспектор;

7. извлекать квадратный корень;

8. производить детали с необходимой точностью;

9. вычислительное устройство для обработки информации;

10. последовательность операций, которые выполняет машина;

11. компьютер, полностью современный по концепции;

12. технология того времени;

13. претворить концепцию в жизнь;

14. расчёт математических таблиц при помощи механического устройства;

15. вопрос жизни и смерти;

16. обратился к Британскому правительству;

17. получил государственную субсидию;

18. забросить проект;

19. воодушевлённый жаккардовым станком, который управлялся при помощи перфокарт;

20. считывающее устройство (устройство для ввода данных с перфокарт);

21. приводилось в действие паром;

22. выполнять вычисления с точностью до 50 цифр;

23. повторять ошибку.

Ex. 21. Answer the questions using the opening phrases: