By ItsNotMagicItsScience

When do you think the first computer was made? Was it in the '60s? Or maybe the '40s? What would you say if it was created a hundred years before that... in 1837?

Believe it or not, the first computer – complete with a CPU, data storage, and even a printer that would churn out results – was created by an English mathematician named Charles Babbage. He drew up plans for an Analytical Engine, which comprised of more than 40,000 moving parts which was nearly five metres long.

There was one problem with Babbage's machine, however:  It only existed on paper.

If the idea of a computer in the 1830s sounds like it came with alien intervention, think again; it's really not that hard to imagine why someone would build such a thing. Back in those days, when the Industrial revolution was in full swing, accurate calculations were needed by the likes of engineers, architects, astronomers, and bankers. Accuracy in the 19th century, however, was hard to come by. Mistakes often happened, leading to disastrous and costly errors.

And so in 1822, Babbage worked on his first “Difference Engine”, which was essentially a giant calculator that was composed of 25,000 parts, more than 13,000kg! Not surprisingly, given its scale, Babbage couldn't complete the project. He tried again with a plan to create a second, improved Difference Engine, but once again it failed to materialise beyond paper – until 1991, when the Difference Engine was made and performed its first calculation at the London Science museum. The results turned out to be far more accurate than a modern pocket calculator (although it was much bigger) with results stretching to 31 digits.

The greatest project that Babbage never stopped working on until his death in 1871 was the Analytical Engine. The difference between this creation and the two Difference Engines was that the Analytical Engine was programmable through punch cards, not unlike how modern computers accept programmes through disks or thumbdrives.

This latest plan was conceived in 1837 and called for 40,000 moving parts to build a steam-powered machine nearly 5m long. It had a “store” – which we call memory in modern computing terms – that was capable of holding 1,000 numbers of 50 decimal digits each, or approximately 20.7 kB. It also had the equivalent of a CPU, an arithmetical unit called the “mill” that would perform arithmetic operations (multiplication, division, subtraction and addition), comparisons and square roots.

The input (programmes and data) would be fed into the Mill through punched cards, and for the output of results, the machine would have a printer, a curve plotter and a bell. It would also be able to punch numbers onto cards to be read in later.

This was an extraordinary effort, given that the transistor – which later made possible to create the microprocessor – was only invented in 1947. Even the vacuum tube, which was the predecessor to the transistor, was only made in 1906 – almost 70 years after Babbage's plans.

As a result of the massive scale of the project (and reports that Babbage was a difficult man to work with), only parts of the Analytical Engine were created, and it wasn't until the '40s that the first general-purpose computers were actually built. Though the similarities between the two inventions were obvious – the punch-card inputs, CPU, and programming language – the Babbage Analytical Engine didn't play a part in the creation of the modern computer.

Pioneers in electronics, unaware of Babbage's plans, spent years reinventing what the mathematician managed to figure out 100 years ago.

Will it work?
Although Babbage is acknowledged as being the “Father of the computer”, the question remains: Would his Analytical Engine ever work in real life? Given that his Difference Engine No 2 was brought to life successfully, there's every reason to expect that it would, but that's not the same as seeing actual printed results.

This is what John G Cummings, a programmer and author of The Geek Atlas, wants to do through a public-funded drive called Plan 28. He has raised more than £60,000 in pledges towards the project's estimated £400,000 costs and is preparing to start construction.

To put into scale Babbage's massive challenge, even with the help of 3D-modelling software running on modern computers, Cummings thinks that it would take many years before Babbage's creation comes to life. After all, Babbage's plans were written in 7,000 pages, with hundreds of large-scale drawings – if you have trouble understanding your TV manual, try this on for size.

Cummings is now working with The Science Museum and the Computer Conservation Society to ensure that the project will run smoothly, and hopes that by July, he would be able to make concrete announcements about the project's progress and timeline.

Right now, Cummings said that he plans to finish Babbage's unrealised life-long dream in 2021, the 150th anniversary of the mathematician's death.