I FIRST LEARNT of Ada Lovelace – the world’s first programmer – while at university where I was studying to be a programmer. I thought her fortunate to have worked with Charles Babbage, the inventor of the Difference and the Analytical Engines. It wasn’t until years later while researching for THE GHOST ENGINE that I delved more deeply into her history and discovered the horrible truth.
Ada never tested any of her programs because the Difference Engine was never built, but most disconcerting was not only the fact she died young, but the way she perished. The irony was that the computer as we know it, a device so ubiquitous and necessary today, the invention that is forever linked to her name, didn’t exist until around the time of the second world war (depending on which text you read).
In January 2015, I was privileged to visit the Computer History Museum in California and see the Difference Engine No 2 in operation. Charles Babbage had never been able to build either full-scale model due to the primitive metal-working techniques of his day, and it had been left to Australian Allan Bromley to accomplish this task (1989-1991), which he did to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Babbage’s birth in 2001. Today, computers are essential in our lives. Yet in the 19th century, computers were only a dream. A dream that might have, had they been around, saved countless lives including and possibly Ada’s, thanks to the speed of the computer.
Ada died young. Of cancer. In great agony, she had asked her physician if she could request a second opinion. The physician’s answer was as I stated in THE GHOST ENGINE, that should Ada do so, he would wash his hands of her. Somehow Ada’s pain made its way into my novel, and Berd, my plucky protagonist was by her own means going to rectify this terrible injustice.
Although Ada never tested her programs she never gave up. Despite ill health, she persisted, corresponding with Charles Babbage. Her thoughts preserved in her diary allow us insight into her brilliance. Imagine what she would have done had the Difference Engine or even the Analytical Engine been invented. Or she had lived longer…
Thank you for reading THE GHOST ENGINE.
I hope you have been as moved as I have by the courage of Ada.
Theresa Fuller
November 2017