My impression was that the problem with Babbage was largely that he was a terrible manager (like Einstein and many other scientists) and thus failed to deliver what he promised even though it was a reasonable proposition given the tech of the day (as Myhrvold demonstrated).
My impression was that the problem with Babbage was largely that he was a terrible manager (like Einstein and many other scientists) and thus failed to deliver what he promised even though it was a reasonable proposition given the tech of the day (as Myhrvold demonstrated).
He was also horrific at politics. Nobody with half a political brain writes this: http://books.google.co.uk/books/reader?id=3bgPAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader