Steam punk novels which have babbage machines in them are cool. If babbage had managed to design his machine so it could take parts which did not require as much precision, it would have made the machine commercially viable. Instead of working on making smaller transistors, we might have been working on making smaller gears. They have now made gears and wheels which are only atoms thick, so theoretically a babbage machine could fit inside of a cell phone.
Anyway cool pic.