History
By Catherine Rose
How the Computer Began Believe it or not, the seeds for the earliest computers were sown at the beginning of the nineteenth century. In 1801 French weaver Joseph Jacquard invented a loom that used punched wooden cards to automatically produce fabric designs – a concept that featured in the first computer systems. However, it is Charles Babbage who is usually credited with the invention of the computer. Born in 1791, he conceived a steam-driven programmable engine able to work out mathematical problems. Sadly, Babbage never lived to see his computer built, but amongst his many drawings and plans he left behind such a
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Charles Babbage’s Difference Engine No 1.
detailed technical design for ‘Difference Engine No. 2’ that the Science Museum’s curator decided to undertake the project in the 1980s. Finished in 2002, it works accurately, produces printouts and weighs five tons. Babbage’s computer was never used in anger. However, during the late 1880s, population growth in the United States meant that the government was struggling to calculate its census figures, so in 1890 Herman Hollerith designed a punch card system to automate the task. He saved the government $5 million and in the process
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