Computer History Museum Tour

Doug Henschen, September 01, 2010 The collection spans from the dawn of the computer to the advent of the PC. Here are top highlights from the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA.
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Babbage Difference Engine

This Babbage Difference Engine was designed to calculate and print mathematical tables. British mathematician Charles Babbage, who designed the device in the late 1840s, believed that the "unerring certainty" of machinery would eliminate human error. The device was never completed in the inventor's lifetime, but this five-ton, 11-foot-long working version of the machine was built (almost entirely to Babbage's specifications and to the tolerances achievable in his day) by the London Science Museum in the 1990s. It contains some 8,000 parts in bronze, cast iron and steel.


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