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So Babbage, the guy who is best known for starting work on the first mechanical computer but dying before completing it, is a heartwarming example? If he'd sta
by hugh3 16y ago
So Babbage, the guy who is best known for starting work on the first mechanical computer but dying before completing it, is a heartwarming example?
If he'd started at 20, he would have finished it.
- emilsedgh 16y agoThats like saying the first one who made a wheel never completed it, because he never managed to get a car! What we know today as computer is probably far from what he imagined.
- konad 16y agoYou're assuming he wasn't working on them. In 1810 aged 19 he started University at Trinity, Cambridge. In 1812 aged 22, disappointed with the level of mathematical tutorage formed the Analytical Society, translating Lacroix' works on differential and integral calculus into English. He transferred to Peterhouse and they gave him a degree without him even having to sit an exam. He also got married during this time. 10 years later his wife and 5 of his 8 children were dead. And he stood up again and invented a fucking programmable computer made out of wheels!! I think I can cut him a bit of slack.
- borisk 16y agoFrom what I've read it seems extremely likely that he did build (in secrecy) a working computer. One that was used by the British secret service to decrypt enemy communications.
- kragen 16y ago[citation needed]