Babbage’s Calculating Machine or Difference Engine

Directed by Charles Eames

A rare, live-action, and close-up study of the only existing Babbage Difference Engine, a machine designed in the first quarter of the 19th-Century by English inventor and mathematician, Charles Babbage. The engine, designed to calculate and print-out tables of numbers for use in navigation, insurance, and astronomy, is considered an important artifact in the history of computing. Babbage is considered to be the father of the modern computer, and the Difference Engine and Analytical Machine are forerunners of the computer. The music is ”Alamaine” and “The Scot’s March” performed by Carl Dolmetsch and the Dolmetsch Quartet.