Digital Dreams In A Steam Engine World

The Babbage Engine Exhibit opens May 10 at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Calif. The central artifact of the exhibit, a faithful construction of Englishman Charles Babbage's Difference Engine No. 2 under the guidance of Babbage Project director Doron Swade, will be on display at the Computer History Museum for a year. Another working version of the engine, fabricated at the same time as the Computer History Museum's machine but assembled earlier, resides at London's Science Museum.