1849 - Charles Babbage invented a massive calculating machine, Difference Engine No. 2 (never completed); precursor of modern computers; used Victorian-era rods, gears, levers and linkages to perform complex mathematical calculations with 31 digits of precision.
1991 - Engineers and curators at London's Science Museum used Babbage's 20 pages of blueprints to finally complete the machine (8,000 parts of bronze, cast iron and steel, weighs five tons, measures 11' long and 7' high).
2008 - Second Difference Engine built (over a 3½-year period by engineers at London's Science Museum), funded by Nathan Myhrvold, former Chief Technology Officer at Microsoft. Delivered to Computer History Museum (Mountain View, CA) - on display for one year, beginning May 10, 2008
(source: http://www.wired.com/images/slideshow/2008/04/gallery_babbage/1.jpg)
Reading:
Non-Fiction: Doron Swade (2001). The Difference Engine: Charles Babbage and the Quest to Build the First Computer. (New York, NY: Viking, 342 p.). Technology Historian and Assistant Director of London's Science Museum. Babbage, Charles, 1791-1871; Calculators--Great Britain--History--19th century. 1821 - Inventor and mathematician Charles Babbage reviewed set of mathematical tables, found excess of errors in the results; began lifelong enterprise to design, build mechanical calculating engine, world's first computer; Babbage's 19th-century quest to build calculating machine, author's successful attempt to build replica for bicentennial of Babbage's birth.
Fiction: (Computers), William Gibson, Bruce Sterling (1991). The Difference Engine. (New York, NY: Bantam Books, 429 p.). Babbage, Charles; Difference Engine No. 2; Computers--Fiction. 1885 - Industrial Revolution is in full swing in scientifically advanced London, governed by an intellectual elite led by Prime Minister Byron, powered by steam-driven, cybernetic engines (computers). Charles Babbage perfects Analytical Engine, and the computer age arrives a century ahead of its time. Young paleontologist comes into possession of a dangerous set of perforated cards, once in the possession of an executed Luddite leader's daughter, later in the hands of "Queen of Engines" Ada Byron (daughter of prime minister Lord Byron), finally given to scientist Edward Mallory who knows the cards are a gambling device that can be read with a specialized Engine; soon threatened and libeled by the Luddites, and he and his associates confront the scoundrels in a violent showdown.
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