Difference Engine

Difference Engine, an early computerlike mechanical device designed by British mathematician and scientist Charles Babbage in the early 1820s. Although never completed by Babbage, the Difference Engine was intended to be a machine with a 20-decimal capacity capable of solving mathematical problems. The concept of the Difference Engine was enhanced by Babbage in the 1830s in the design of his more famous Analytical Engine, a mechanical precursor of the electronic computer. Babbage, incidentally, was also the inventor of the speedometer and the cowcatcher. See also Analytical Engine; Computer.