Featured Columns Reflections Rebuilding History ¦ Again! Deepak Kumar What would you do if a grant proposal you submitted was rejected? Twice! Well it turns out that third time is a charm but you have to have more than a life time of patience. We re talking about a proposal that was first submitted and rejected for funding in 1852. A second submission in 1982 was also rejected. Finally, in 1985, a third attempt was successful in obtaining funding to build, for the first time in computing history, Charles Babbage s Difference Engine No. 2. Amazingly enough this was made possible by the fact that the first submission, a bound set of 24 detailed drawings and tracings, was pristinely preserved in the British Government s archives and later handed over to the London Science Museum. Using these drawings, Allan Bromley, Doron Swade and a team of engineers and curators obtained funding and constructed a working version of the Engine just in time for a special exhibit commemorating Babbage s bi-centennial birth anniversary in 1991. Doron Swade recounts the moment in his book, The Cog Wheel Brain (Little Brown & Company, 2000): On Friday 29 November (1991) the engine
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Reflections: rebuilding history... again!
Kumar, Deepak
Follow ACM SIGCSE Bulletin
, Volume 41 (2)
Association for Computing Machinery – Jun 25, 2009
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