Wiktionary
n. (context computing English) A mechanical special-purpose computer used to generate tables of values of polynomials.
Wikipedia
A difference engine is an automatic mechanical calculator designed to tabulate polynomial functions. The name derives from the method of divided differences, a way to interpolate or tabulate functions by using a small set of polynomial coefficients. Most mathematical functions commonly used by engineers, scientists and navigators, including logarithmic and trigonometric functions, can be approximated by polynomials, so a difference engine can compute many useful tables of numbers.
The historical difficulty in producing error-free tables by teams of mathematicians and human "computers" spurred Charles Babbage's desire to build a mechanism to automate the process. It is considered to be the world's first computer.
Usage examples of "difference engine".
Lord Charles Babbage, father of the Difference Engine and the Newton of our modern age!
A complete EAI TR-20 analog computer from the sixties, a 1956 Heath electronic analog kit computer, an Altair 8800 and 680b computers, a twenty-five-year-old IBM 510 portable, a Commodore KIM-1, the famous TRS-80, a Kaypro portable, a COSMAC VIP, a number of Apples and Macs, tubes from the original Univac, brass gears and a number disk from a prototype of Charles Babbage's never-completed Difference Engine from the 1800s and notes about it jotted down by Ada Byron -Lord Byron's daughter and Babbage's companion - who wrote instructions for his machines and is therefore considered the world's first computer programmer.
He co-authored, with William Gibson, the critically acclaimed novel The Difference Engine.
His most recent work, co-authored with Bruce Sterling, is entitled The Difference Engine.