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A computer printer designed more than 150 years ago has finally been built
and is on display at the Science Museum in London. The 2.5-tonne machine was
designed to print the results of Charles Babbage’s Difference Engine No 2, the
world’s first mechanical calculator, capable of solving trigonometric problems
and finding binomial solutions. Babbage built neither machine in his lifetime,
but the museum’s former curator of computing Doron Swade built a working model
in 1991. Now Swade and colleagues have made the 4000-piece printer, which prints
on paper as well as producing printing plates.