Doron Swade, technology historian and assistant director of the London Science Museum, investigates the problems experienced knowledge engineer of the 19th century in The Difference Engine: Charles Babbage and the Quest Build the First Computer. The author is in a unique position to appreciate the technical difficulties, because he led the team that built a working model Difference Engine, using contemporary materials, in time for Babbage's 1991 bicentennial. Swade have it relatively easy, although the portrayal of the frustrated quest for money and then work out the best way to build a big machine in the late 1980s the fun. It is difficult - perhaps impossible - to draw an unbroken line of influence from Babbage's clear to any researcher of modern computers, but its importance both as the first pioneers and as a symbol of joy and sorrow of computing is no doubt differences. The engine of a comprehensive loving and will thrill readers looking for more technical examination of Babbage's career.