The description of "the internal combustion engine that powered the first industrial revolution" is some kind of fantasy. As ChatGPT puts it:
The “first industrial revolution” was powered mainly by steam engines, not internal combustion engines. Internal combustion engines became important later, during the late 19th century / Second Industrial Revolution.
Typical piston internal combustion engines do not have “two complementary pistons” called “intake” and “compression.”
Intake, compression, ignition/power, and exhaust are strokes (phases of operation), not pistons.
That’s correct. This a rhetorical point not a literal engine with two pistons. You can replace it with something else. Two components that work together.