Analytical Engine

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Analytical Engine The logic design for a mechanical computer conceived by Charles Babbage around 1834, but never built. The design envisioned a memory of a thousand 50-digit numbers. The machine, which could do addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, was to be controlled by programs punched into loops of cards; the machine was thus to be directed through a variety of computations, and alternative paths could be taken depending on the values of intermediate results. It was to have included a printer to obtain the results. The design was remarkable in anticipating so many elements of modern computers. The Analytical Engine followed an earlier planned device in 1821, the Difference Engine, which was designed for producing mathematical tables. A later simplified version, Difference Engine 2, was designed by Babbage around 1847–49. The London Science Museum constructed a working replica of this machine in 1991 to celebrate the bicentenary of Babbage's birth.

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