Speculative Fact #285 (bonus edition): Victorian Computers

This spec fact is a special one; yesterday was the bicentennial of Ada Lovelace’s birthday (born December 10th, 1815). Ada (the honorable Augusta Ada Byron, Countess of Lovelace) was a noble, Renaissance woman, and mathematician.  
            Ada’s pioneering work on the world’s first algorithm was used in conjunction with Charles Babbage’s analytical engine (a mechanical computer); that makes her the world’s first computer programmer. Ada was a pioneer in that she envisioned that computers would one day be common and applied to many tasks.
            The Difference Engine by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling is an alternate history steampunk novel about how Victorian computers impacted history and forever changed the British Empire( the story was largely inspired by Lovelace and Babbage). Let's celebrate the work of Lovelace by taking her vision, running with it, and exploring some avenue never explored before.

-Jonathan Hernandez

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