Babbage’s Calculating Machine or Difference Engine

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 this 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.

3 minutes, 50 seconds

1968
Babbage’s Calculating Machine or Difference Engine is a live-action, close-up study of the only existing Babbage Difference Engine, a machine designed in the first half of the nineteenth-century by Charles Babbage, an English inventor and mathematician, and later built by his son, Henry.
Produced for the proposed IBM Corporation Musuem.
A companion piece to another film,  The Scheutz Machine.
The musical accompaniment was performed by Carl Dolmetsch and the Dolmetsch Consort on an Angel recording.
3 minutes, 50 seconds.  Black and white.

A visual study of the calculating machine or difference engine.

1968
This film is a live-action, close-up study of the only existing Babbage Difference Engine. The machine was designed in the early 1800s by Charles Babbage, an English inventor and mathematician, and later built by his son Henry.
The engine, designed to calculate and print out tables of numbers for use in navigation, insurance, and astronomy, is an important artifact in computer history. Babbage is considered to be the father of the modern computer, and his Difference Engine and Analytical Machine are among the forerunners of the modern electronic computer. The film provides a rare opportunity to view the Difference Engine in action.
The Eames Office worked on this project for the Computer Origins section of the proposed IBM Corporation Museum. Charles, assisted by Bruce Collier of Harvard University and staff member Parke Meek, filmed the machine in the Science Museum in South Kensington, London, where it is housed.
The musical accompaniment was performed by Carl Dolmetsch and the Dolmetsch Consort on an Angel recording.

3 minutes, 50 seconds.  Black and white.