Charles Babbage (1792-1871) is often referred as the "father of computing" because of his invention of the analytical engine. He is certainly the originator of the main concepts behind the present day computer and arguably the world's first computer "programmer".

Babbage was one of the key figures in a great era of British history. Born as the industrial revolution was hitting its stride, by the time of Babbage's death Britain had become the world's leading, most industrialized country.

Born in London, Babbage was self taught in algebra and was a bit of a prodigy. When he entered Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1811, he found himself further advanced in mathematics than his instructors. There, with some friends, he effected the introduction of the Leibnitz notation for  calculus, transforming the study of mathematics throughout Britain and the world.

In 1820 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. In that same year he was a major influence in the founding of the Royal Astronomical Society. For twenty five years Babbage was also a leading figure in London society. His home was a meeting place for the liberal intellectuals of Europe and his Saturday evening parties, attended by two or three hundred people were famous.

It was in his twenties while working as a mathematician, principally in the calculus of functions, that Babbage first acquired the interest in calculating machinery which was to become the consuming passion for the rest of his life.

Babbage's greatest achievement was his detailed plans for Calculating Engines, both the table making Difference Engines and the sophisticated Analytical Engine, forerunners of modern electronic computers.

These were designs for powerful machines which were punched card controlled general purpose calculators. Many of the features Babbage designed showed up in very similar form in the modern mainframe stored program computer. These features include: punched card control, separate store and mill, a set of internal registers, array processing of a form, fast multiplier/divider and various peripheral devices.
 

The Design of the Analytical Engine

Although the analytic engine never progressed beyond detailed drawings, it is remarkably similar in logical components to a present day computer. Babbage describes five logical components in his detailed drawings and design for the Analytical Engine: the store, mill, control, input and the output.

The store,  like the RAM in today's PCs, contained:

    " ... all the variables to be operated upon, as well as all those quantities which had arisen from the results of  other operations."

The mill is the counterpart to the of the central processing unit (CPU) of today's computers and it is where:

    " ... the quantities about to be operated upon are always brought. "

The control - or specifications - of the sequence of operations to be carried out (the "software program") was done on a Jacquard loom type device. It was operated by a set of punched cards.

Each set of punched cards was liked a stored software program. One set was made for any formula and could consistently recalculate the formula with whatever constants were required.

The store was envisioned to hold 1000 50-digit numbers, but Babbage designed the analytic engine to effectively have infinite storage. This was done by outputting the data itself to other punched cards which could be read in again later.

Could he have built it?
It has always intrigued computer designers and scientists whether Babbage's Engines would have worked if they had been built. Perhaps a more meaningful question is would it have been technically feasible for Babbage to construct an Analytical Engine during the 1850s?

After extensive studies, two scientists, Anthony Hyman and the late Maurice Trask announced their opinion that construction of Babbage's Engines would have been quite possible. The problems faced were financial and organizational, but the project itself was perfectly feasible technically.

Later, an ongoing project, involving many scientists and engineers built a complete version of "DE2" a second generation version of Babbage's calculating engines. It was a triumph vindicating Babbage's technical work and achievements.

Apart from the calculating engines Babbage left a legacy of eclectic and diverse achievements including a consumer guide to life insurance. He also did pioneering work in lighthouse signaling, designed dozens of other inventions and developed sophisticated mathematical code breaking techniques. Babbage was also an important political economist.

Despite his many achievements, Babbage died a disappointed and bitter man because of his
failure to realize the dream of constructing his "calculating machines". He was enormously frustrated by the lack of support for his work from the British government after the initial stages.

If only Babbage knew that the construction of modern computers, logically similar to his original designs, have changed the entire universe of mathematics, he would be rightly proud to know he had in fact changed the whole world.