This page contains a Web simulation of the Difference Engine, to be used in the Charles Babbage, Ada Lovelace, and the Dawn of Computing Reacting to the Past game.
Here we use a modern programming language and Web interface to automate the process of computation using the method of finite differences. You will not see the moving gears and cogs that Babbage’s engine would have used, but you will be able to carry out a finite differences calculation similar to the ones the Difference Engine was designed to compute.
Fill in the first row of a finite differences table, and then click “Submit” to set the machine in motion. Click on the “Reset” button to reset the simulator for another computation.
| x | f(x) | d1(x) | d2(x) | d3(x) | d4(x) | d5(x) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 |