Missives from the 6th Floor

The book, when judged against Longitude, comes up a bit short - both in the writing, which wasn't as crisp and flowing, as well as in the story being told, but had that comparison not been made, the book would stand well on it's own merits.

The first two thirds of the text relate Babbage's efforts to build, first, his difference engine, and then his general purpose analytical engine. It takes to task the predominant view that Ada Lovelace was somehow intimately involved in the development and paints her rather as a late-coming manic-depressive publicist of sorts, who wrote at length on subjects of which she had little understanding.

The last third of the text briefly relates the story of the London Museum's program to build a working engine based directly on Babbage's "completed" plans for "Engine No. 2." in time for his 200th birthday in 1991. It's mostly a tale of navigating a bureaucracy - but has moments of grace that make the telling worth while.

The final chapter in the book summarizes arguments that despite history's rosy painting of Babbage as the "grandfather" of the modern computer - the opposite is in the case, that his failed (and expensive) efforts spoiled the field for years to come, possibly delaying the advent of automatic calculation. While it may be true that modern computing shares no direct lineage with Babbage's work, as a pioneer and visionary Babbage seems certainly worthy of admiration.