Highlights of the London
Science Museum’s
Computing Collection

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1. difference engine No. 1: This trial portion of the difference engine was used by Babbage as a demonstration machine.

2. analytical engine Mill, 1834–1871: Babbage’s design possessed all the essential logical features of the modern general-purpose computer.

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3. Lord Kelvin’s tide predicting machine, 1876: By cranking the handle, the machine calculates the harbor’s tide patterns for up to a year in only four hours.

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4. hartree and Porter differential analyzer, 1934: Built using Meccano at a cost of just £ 20, the model was based on the differential analyzer built by Vannevar Bush at Mi T, 1930.

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5. Parts of Colossus, 1943: From the code-breaking machine used during the second World War at Bletchley Park.

6. Unit from eNiaC, 1946: developed at the University of Pennsylvania, the machine laid the foundations for high-speed digital computing.

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7. Pilot aCe, 1950: The first machine to embody the theoretical ideas of a general-purpose computer by mathematician alan Turing.

8. Unit from Leo 1, 1951: The first business computer used by the Lyons teashops.

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9. Ferranti Pegasus Computer, 1959: Currently the oldest working electronic computer in the world.

10. BesM- 6 supercomputer, 1966: The only known example of a russian supercomputer in the West.

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11. apple i, 1976: This first apple computer was a kit machine for home assembly.

12. Cray i-a, 1976: The last operating Cray 1-a in the world, the machine employed a cylindrical design to reduce the need for wiring.

46 communications of the acm | may2010 | vol. 53 | no. 5

the science museum in London

Tilly Blyth

 

The Science Museum’s collections in London form an enduring record of scientific, technological, and medical change since the 18th century. The Science Museum has its origins in the Great Exhibition of 1851. Initially part of the South Kensington Museum, the impetus was to promote the new “industrial arts” (what we might now call art, craft, science, design, and engineering).

The museum’s science collections were enriched in 1876 with the acquisition of a large number of scientific instruments, and the engineering collections grew through the absorption of the Patent Office Museum in 1883. The museum attracts over 2. 6 million visitors a year, and is world renowned for its historic collections, awe-inspiring galleries, and inspirational exhibitions.

The Science Museum’s collections celebrate computing as one of the most important technologies of our time, both in its own right, but also as an underpinning and enabling technology for so many other industries (see http:// www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/).

The museum’s computing collections are perhaps most well known for containing the seminal objects and material legacy of the mathematician and inventor Charles Babbage (1791–1871). In Victorian Britain printed mathematical tables were used by navigators, architects, engineers, mathematicians and bankers, but these tables were calculated by human clerks (literally called calculators) and they were quite often riddled with errors. Charles Babbage became interested in mechanizing the production of these tables and he developed a series of diagrams and prototypes to enable him to explore his ideas.

Babbage designed two types of engine, Difference Engines and Analytical Engines. The Difference Engines are calculators that work on a mathematical principle of “a method of finite differences,” which allow polynomial equations to be calculated using pure addition. In contrast, The Analytical Engines mark a progression toward a general-purpose machine. They are one of the startling intellectual feats of the 19th century