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 ...

In 1843, Ada Lovelace published notes on Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine, outlining how a machine could follow instructions to perform complex operations and manipulate symbols beyond arithmetic.

As you might expect from its name, the "Difference Engine" is a strangely difficult object to describe. You might start by imagining the side of a large crib with uprights ringed by small metal wheels ...

Ada Lovelace, known as the first computer programmer, was born on Dec. 10, 1815, more than a century before digital electronic computers were developed. Lovelace has been hailed as a model for girls ...