Difference Engine No 1. 1 a fateful start. Unlike contemporary calculators the difference engine was not designed to perform ordinary day to day arithmetic but to calculate a series of numerical values and automatically print the results.
1 even as incomplete has its own place in computer history. 1 was designed to automatically calculate and tabulate mathematical functions called polynomials which have powerful general applications in mathematics and engineering. 1 was the first successful automatic calculator and remains one of the finest examples of precision engineering of the time.
A difference engine designed by famous computer pioneer charles babbage in the 19th century is a calculator designed on the mathematic principle of the method of finite differences.
1 is the first complete design for an automatic calculating engine. 1 a fateful start. Babbage learned much from designing the analytical engine and in 1847 began work on his difference engine no. The engine called for some 25 000 parts shared equally between the calculating section and the printer.
