In autumn of 1840, Charles Babbage arrived in Turin for a meeting of Italian scientists, where he gave the only public explanation of the workings of his “Analytical Engine.” This machine was the ...

Slow, error-prone calculations by hand were unavoidable in the early 19th century, yet even small mistakes could ruin the ...

The first computer didn’t show up looking like anything we’d call a computer now. There was no screen, no keyboard, no mouse, and definitely no controller waiting beside it. Early computers were built ...

Created by Charles Babbage, the Analytical Engine was a general-purpose, completely program-controlled, mechanical digital computer with no human intervention. It was designed to be programmed using ...

In 1837, British mathematician Charles Babbage produced the very first description of a computer. He called it the analytical engine and spent the rest of his life refining, but never completing, it.

Though Silicon Valley may be the heart of the commercialisation of all things digital, it is the British who can proudly boast having invented the computer. Indeed, so proud are the British of the ...

Frustrated by human error, mathematician and inventor Charles Babbage designed a machine to perform mathematical functions and automatically print the results. Library of Congress When today’s number ...

Sydney Padua’s graphic novel tells the story of Babbage and Lovelace with a twist – they actually build their Analytical Engine. To see a selection of extracts from the book, click here. ‘Surely there ...

Not even IMDB seems to know whether Zooey Deschanel has been cast as Ada Lovelace in Enchantress of Numbers, but Lovelace and Babbage’s Analytical Engine computer shall be finally built—if ...

Born in England on December 26, 1791, Babbage was one of the four children of banker Benjamin Babbage and Elizabeth Teape. A strong advocate of reforms in science, Charles Babbage published six ...