Working alone, Ludgate designed an analytical engine while unaware of Babbage’s designs, although he later went on to write about Babbage’s machine. Ludgate’s engine used multiplication as its base mechanism (unlike Babbage’s which used addition). It incorporated the first multiplier-accumulator, and was the first to exploit a multiplier-accumulator to perform division, using multiplication seeded by reciprocal, via the convergent series (1 + x)−1.
sbv@sh.itjust.works 2 years ago