ABSTRACT
As early as 1834, Charles Babbage had conceived of an automatic calculat-
ing machine, his proposed but never constructed analytical engine, intended
to carry out numerical computations of the most varied kind.∗ To emphasize the power and scope of his engine, Babbage remarked facetiously that
“it could do everything but compose country dances.”1 While for Babbage,
it was self-evident that machines designed for computation could not be ex-
pected to compose dances, it does not strike us today as being at all out of
the question. In fact, today’s computers can perfectly well be programmed
to compose country dances (although probably not of the finest quality).
Someone today seeking a similar figure of speech
