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Auction: 24025 - Historical Documents Featuring the Major David Cecil Underwood Jr Collection of Royal Visits to India 1876-1906
Lot: 203

Great Britain
Charles Babbage (1791-1871)
1858, October - Autograph letter written on mourning notepaper by Charles Babbage, the mathematician and "computer pioneer", referring to his "infernal machine". He writes to Sir Henry Knights Storks (1811-1874) inviting him and Rawlinson (Sir Robert Rawlinson, the civil engineer) to breakfast on Sunday next "and will show you both the means I am organising for the construction of an Infernal Machine". The letter makes reference to Babbage's analytical engine, conceived in the 1830's. It was designed to perform all four basic mathematical computations and to be programmed using punched cards. This "infernal machine" is regarded as much more the predecessor of the modern computer as compared to the earlier "Difference Engine". The first was only partially constructed and the second completed by the Science Museum in 1991.
Together with a rarely found carte de visite photograph of Charles Babbage, and a newspaper cutting reporting his death.
A highly important and significant letter (3)

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Estimate
£6,000 to £7,000

Starting price
£5500