2. John Graham-Cumming, director of the
project known as Plan 28, wants to raise
£250,000 (about $400,000) for the first two
stages of the project, which will span over
two to three years. Stage one will involve
more fully researching Babbage‟s engine;
stage two will see the researchers create a
3D computer simulation of the machine.
Plan 28 had looked into using Kickstarter
to raise funds, then balked at the 10%
commission the fundraising site charged.
Now it‟s relying on donations via the
website JustGiving.com.
Researchers have already re-built another
machine based off Babbage‟s
plans, known as Difference Engine No.
2, which is currently at the Science
Museum in London and works with the
help of a hand crank. But the Analytical
Engine was a later invention of
Babbage‟s, and far more sophisticated.

3. Plan 28′s technical director, Doron
Swade, says it was the “first design to
embody just about every logical principle of
the modern digital computer, but using
cogs and levers. We can‟t wait to see if it
works.”
Though the machine will probably need
some de-bugging along the way, Graham
Cumming says he‟s “quietly confident” that
it will work: “Babbage describes quite
clearly all the major components of the
machine. All those things are there. It‟s
more a question of mechanically can this
machine operate at this scale? Would it
jam all the time? Would it be reliable?”
Some of the machine‟s more critical parts
include long chains and gears, and the
researchers still don‟t know if they will work
properly together when running some of
the programs that had been prepared for it.

5. Babbage also became exasperated with the “British
mentality” on creating and marketing inventions. “He
thought, if you show a British person an invention like
this they‟d think up all the bad things about it,” says
Graham Cumming. “If you show an American they‟d
think, „How can I make money from this?‟ He actually
considered touring America to raise money for it.”
A close up of the London Science Museum's replica
difference engine, built from Babbage's design (Photo
credit: Wikipedia)
Babbage‟s designs were borne out of his obsession
with mathematics. He wanted the machine to calculate
complicated sums, and act as an extension to the large
logs that bookkeepers of his era were using.

6. As such the finished product might not
have ushered in some of the high-tech
trappings you see in steam punk
fiction, but the British government probably
would have used it to help expand their
then-Empire, by tracking trade.
“The only people who would have been
able to afford it was the government,” says
Graham Cumming. “I don‟t think we would
have seen people with a mini version.”