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iCompute For more fun computing lessons and resources visit: Who was Charles Babbage? 8 He was an English mathematician Charles Babbage and inventor 8 He designed the world’s first computing machine Biography for children The story of important figures in the history of computing Charles Babbage (1791 – 1871) © iCompute 2015 www.icompute -uk.com iCompute Why is Charles Babbage important? 8 He believed that machines could be designed to do complicated calculations quickly 8 His ideas led to the world’s first programmable computing machines 8 His designs contain may of the parts that modern computers use today His early years 8 Born 26th December 1791 8 The son of a London banker 8 Charles was a sickly child, often too unwell to go to school 8 He was often taught by private tutors 8 One, from Oxford, helped his love of mathematics grow © iCompute 2015 www.icompute -uk.com iCompute 8 He went to Trinity College, Cambridge in 1810 8 Elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1816 8 Helped found the Astronomical Society in 1820 8 In 1814 he married Georgiana Whitmore 8 They had eight children 8 Only four survived to adulthood 8 Charles’ son, Henry Prevost Babbage, built some pieces to his father’s design after his Charles’ death 8 One went to Harvard University and inspired the first ever electro-mechanical computer – The Harvard Mark 1 The Harvard Mark 1 Science Museum, London © iCompute 2015 www.icompute -uk.com iCompute Charles Babbage and Computers 8 He invented the Difference Engine in 1822 which was a machine for calculating tables 8 In 1834 he designed a steam powered engine called the Analytical Engine, a computing machine that could be programmed 8 Ada Lovelace created an algorithm designed to be executed by it and is known as the world’s first computer programmer The Difference Engine Science Museum, London 8 The Difference Engine and Analytical Engine were never built when Babbage was alive but a working Difference Engine was built to his design in 2002 and is on display in The Science Museum, London 8 His Analytical Engine had many of the parts a modern computer has today and it is for this reason that he is known as the ‘father of computers’ © iCompute 2015 www.icompute -uk.com .

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Computer History – the Pitfalls of Past Futures
Research Collection Working Paper Computer history – The pitfalls of past futures Author(s): Gugerli, David; Zetti, Daniela Publication Date: 2019 Permanent Link: https://doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000385896 Rights / License: In Copyright - Non-Commercial Use Permitted This page was generated automatically upon download from the ETH Zurich Research Collection. For more information please consult the Terms of use. ETH Library TECHNIKGESCHICHTE DAVID GUGERLI DANIELA ZETTI COMPUTER HISTORY – THE PITFALLS OF PAST FUTURES PREPRINTS ZUR KULTURGESCHICHTE DER TECHNIK // 2019 #33 WWW.TG.ETHZ.CH © BEI DEN AUTOREN Gugerli, Zetti/Computer History Preprints zur Kulturgeschichte der Technik #33 Abstract The historicization of the computer in the second half of the 20th century can be understood as the effect of the inevitable changes in both its technological and narrative development. What interests us is how past futures and therefore history were stabilized. The development, operation, and implementation of machines and programs gave rise to a historicity of the field of computing. Whenever actors have been grouped into communities – for example, into industrial and academic developer communities – new orderings have been constructed historically. Such orderings depend on the ability to refer to archival and published documents and to develop new narratives based on them. Professional historians are particularly at home in these waters – and nevertheless can disappear into the whirlpool of digital prehistory. Toward the end of the 1980s, the first critical review of the literature on the history of computers thus offered several programmatic suggestions. It is one of the peculiar coincidences of history that the future should rear its head again just when the history of computers was flourishing as a result of massive methodological and conceptual input.
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Turing's Influence on Programming — Book Extract from “The Dawn of Software Engineering: from Turing to Dijkstra”
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A Bibliography of Publications By, and About, Charles Babbage
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The Early Mathematical Education of Ada Lovelace. Hollings, Martin And
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