What follows are excerpts from the narrative and correspondence of Augusta Ada Byron, Lady Lovelace who has been credited with being the first computer programmer and also portrayed as a character in Sterling and Gibson's "Difference Engine". These excerpts appear in "Ada, The Enchantress of Numbers: A Selection from the Letters of Lord Byron's Daughter and Her Description of the First Computer" where we get a different view of Ada than the many biographies and science fiction characters by letting Ada speak for herself. I believe by putting both the science-fiction and technological view together with this very personal, intimate human portrayal, the richness of the birth of the computer revolution emerges. "Ada" contains all the letters she wrote to Babbage during the time that she was adding Notes to the description of the Analytical Engine, as well as a holographic glimpse of this very remarkable 19th century lady with 21st century aspirations. If you are interested in obtaining the book please e-mail (adatoole@well.sf.ca.us) and I will give you the particulars. Please give me an idea where you live. and I will let you know the most convenient way to obtain a copy. See also Howard Rheingold's Review in "Whole Earth Review", Summer, 1992 Permission to quote from these letters are restricted to short quotes in journal articles and reviews, all others follow procedures specified in the book. -Betty Toole adatoole@well.sf.ca.us ========================================================================= From Part 10. Working Like the Devil, A Fairy in Your Service, What a General I Would Make, An Analyst and a Metaphysician [1843] Ada gave Wheatstone, who was working with Richard Taylor, the publisher of a scientific journal, her translation of L. F. Menabrea's description of Babbage's Analytical Engine, which was published in French in a Swiss Journal in October, 1842. According to Babbage's recollection in his autobiography, Passages, many years after Ada's death, he wrote: "Some time after the appearance of his memoir [article] on the subject in the "Bibliothque Universelle de Gnve," the Countess of Lovelace informed me that she had translated the memoir of Menabrea. I asked why she had not herself written an original paper on the subject with which she was so intimately acquainted? To this Lady Lovelace replied that the thought had not occurred to her. I then suggested that she should add notes to Menabrea's memoir: an idea which was immediately adopted.". . . By the time Babbage died he had filled over thirty volumes with plans for the Analytical Engine. Ada's job was to synthesize and put those ideas together in such a way that the British Government and scientists would recognize the value of Babbage's revolutionary invention. . . . Ada began her task of writing the Notes by asking pertinent questions and selecting a mathematical model that would highlight the difference between Babbage's first calculating engine, the Difference Engine, and the Analytical Engine. Ada's selection of the Bernoulli numbers was a perfect example to highlight the difference. . . No mere calculator or calculating engine like the Difference Engine could perform this feat. Only the Analytical Engine could. One of the reasons the Analytical Engine could calculate Bernoulli numbers without the intervention of a "human hand or head" was numerical information and operational instructions would be received by the means of a punch card (or punched card) which Babbage had adapted from Jacquard. . . In the midst of this very serious undertaking Ada wrote delightful and outlandish letters to Babbage. The letters are not only filled with discussions about Bernoulli numbers and the Medora melodrama, but Ada also had visions of herself as a fairy, puzzle-pate and general. She even made references to flirtations with her Somerset neighbour, Frederick Knight. Babbage became her confidant and she became his "interpretess." -------------- 1. To Charles Babbage Thursday Morning [1843] Ockham My Dear Babbage. I have read your papers over with great attention; but I want you to answer me the following question by return of post. The day I called on you, you wrote off on a scrap of paper (which I have unluckily lost), that the Difference Engine would do. . . Analytical Engine would do . . . (something else which is absolutely general). Be kind enough to write this out properly for me; & then I think I can make some very good Notes. I have been considering about Prince Albert; but I much doubt the expediency of it. However there is time enough to consider of this. I am anxious to hear how you are. Yours ever A.A.L. ------------- Ada started making headway with the Notes and sent some off for Babbage's inspection. As for her Note A, Babbage replied the next day: "If you are as fastidious about the acts of your friendship as you are about those of your pen, I much fear I shall equally lose your friendship and your Notes. I am very reluctant to return your admirable & philosophic Note A. Pray do not alter it . . . All this was impossible for you to know by intuition and the more I read your notes the more surprised I am at them and regret not having earlier explored so rich a vein of the noblest metal." Babbage continued his compliments and wrote her that Note D was in her usual "clear style." . . . ------------- 2. To Charles Babbage Monday [10 July 1843]1 Ockham My Dear Babbage. I am working very hard for you; like the Devil in fact; (which perhaps I am). I think you will be pleased. I have made what appear to me some very important extensions & improvements. . .It appears to me that I am working up the Notes with much success; & that even if the book be delayed in itUs [sic] publication, a week or two, in consequence, it would be worth Mr Taylor's while to wait. I will have it well & fully done; or not at all. I want to put in something about Bernoulli's Numbers, in one of my Notes, as an example of how an implicit function, may be worked out by the engine, without having been worked out by human head & hands first. Give me the necessary data & formulae. Yours ever A.A.L. 1 Because of this first reference to the Bernoulli numbers, I believe this letter should be dated 26 June. . . ------------- 6. To Charles Babbage Tuesday Morning [4 July 1843] Ockham My Dear Babbage. I now write to you expressly on three points; which I have very fully & leisurely considered during the last 18 hours; & think of sufficient importance to induce me to send a servant up so that you may have this letter by half after six this evening. . . In Note D, it is very well & lucidly demonstrated that every single Operation, demands the use of at least three Variable-Cards. It does not signify whether the operations be in cycles or not. A million successive additions +,+,+, &c, &c, &c, would each demand the use of three new Variable-Cards, under ordinary circumstances. In Note H, the erroneous lines are founded on the hasty supposition that the cycle, or recurring group, of Operation- Cards (13 . . . .23), will be fed by a cycle, or recurring group, of Variable-Cards. I enclose what I believe it ought to be. If already gone to the printer, we must alter that passage in the proofs, unless you could call at the printers & there paste over the amendment. -- I can scarcely describe to you how very ill & harassed I felt yesterday. Pray excuse any abruptness or other unpleasantness of manner, if there were any. I am breathing well again today, & am much better in all respects; owing to Dr. L's remedies. He certainly does seem to understand the case, I mean the treatment of it, which is the main thing. As for the theory of it, he says truly that time & Providence alone can develop that. It is so anomalous an affair altogether. A Singular Function, in very deed! Think of my having to walk, (or rather run), to the Station, in half an hour last evening; while I suppose you were feasting & flirting in luxury & ease at your dinner. It must be a very pleasant merry sort of thing to have a Fairy in one's service, mind & limbs! -- I envy you! -- I, poor little Fairy, can only get dull heavy mortals, to wait on me! -- Ever Yours A.L. ------------- 8. To Charles Babbage Wednesday, 5 July [1843] Ockham Park My Dear Babbage. I am much obliged by the contents of your letter, in all respects. . . "Why does my friend prefer imaginary roots for our friendship?" -- Just because she happens to have some of that very imagination which you would deny her to possess; & therefore she enjoys a little play & scope for it now & then. Besides this, I deny the Fairyism to be entirely imaginary; (& it is to the fairy similes that I suppose you allude). That brain of mine is something more than merely mortal; as time will show; (if only my breathing & some other et-ceteras do not make too rapid a progress towards instead of from mortality). -- Before ten years are over, the Devil's in it if I have not sucked out some of the life-blood from the mysteries of this universe, in a way that no purely mortal lips or brains could do. No one knows what almost awful energy & power lie yet undevelopped in that wiry little system of mine. I say awful, because you may imagine what it might be under certain circumstances. Lord L, P sometimes says "what a General1 you would make!" Fancy me in times of social & political trouble, (had worldly power, rule, & ambition been my line, which now it never could be). A desperate spirit truly; & with a degree of deep & fathomless prudence, which is strangely at variance with the daring & the enterprise of the character, a union that would give me unlimited sway & success, in all probability. My kingdom however is not to be a temporal one, thank Heaven! -- I do not go to Town until Monday. Keep yourself open if you can for that day; in case there should be anything I wish to see you about, which is very likely. But the evening I think is most likely to be my time for you, as I rather expect to be engaged incessantly until after 6 o' clock. I shall sleep in Town that night. -- I am doggedly attacking & sifting to the very bottom, all the ways of deducing the Bernoulli Numbers. In the manner I am grappling with this subject, & connecting it with others, I shall be some days upon it. I shall then take in succession the other subjects that have been suggested to me during my late labours, & treat them similarly. -- "Labor ipse voluptas"2 is in very deed my motto! -- And, (as I hinted just now), it is perhaps well for the world that my line & ambition is over the spiritual; & that I have not taken it into my head, or lived in times & circumstances calculated to put it into my head, to deal with the sword, poison, & intrigue, in the place of x, y, & z. . . Your Fairy for ever A.A.L. . . 1 Ada's humorous reference to a General is prescient. The software language "Ada" was named in her honour. It was developed and is used as a standard by the U.S. Department of Defense. 2 "Labour is its own reward," was the Lovelace family motto. . . ------------- 9. To Charles Babbage Thursday [6 July 1843] Ockham My Dear Babbage. . . .I do not suppose that the Notes will take half the corrections which the translation does. I took so much more pains with them. I hope not, for it is damnably troublesome work, & plagues me. Pray let me know if my corrections are intelligible. . . F Knight reappeared from Holland on Tuesday, so he spent Wednesday Morg with me, & was very delightful. He is anxious about my publication, & only fears my writing anything inexperienced. I see I am more his ladye-love than ever. He is an excellent creature, & deserves to have a nice ladye-love. -- Yours A.L. . . ------------- 11. To Charles Babbage Thursday, 6 o'clock [13 July 1843] My Dear Babbage. . . .I send you a note from F. K. [Frederick Knight]. It will show you the tone of writing between us; & the sort of footing we are on. Are you not amused at "your Ladyship" which just means, by the way that I am anything but My Ladyship to him! -- Am I very naughty to send you such a caller-up of many & dubious speculations and associations? -- No. Ever yours A.L. ------------- The next collection of letters found in Part 11 of Ada, The Enchantress of Numbers covers some of the disagreements Ada and Babbage had while writing the Notes. After the publication of the Notes, the arguments were resolved and Ada invited Babbage to Ashley Combe, her home in Somerset. Babbage's reply to Ada's invitation was: 9 September 1843 My Dear Lady Lovelace. I find it quite in vain to wait until I have leisure so I have resolved that I will leave all other things undone and set out for Ashley taking with me papers enough to enable me to forget this world and all its' troubles and if possible its' multitudinous Charlatans P every thing in short but the Enchantress of Numbers. . . Farewell my dear and much admired Interpretess. Evermost Truly Yours C Babbage ------------------------------------------------------------ Ada published by Strawberry Press is a 452 page hardback covered in maroon cloth with over 80 illustrations.e-mail adatoole@well.sf.us.ca or adatoole@crl.com or send $29.95 (US) which includes postage inside the USA, outside the USA add $14US to: Critical Connection PO Box 452 Sausalito CA 94966 or in the USA call Science News Books at 1-800-544-4565 .