> I've heard people answer "Grace Hopper", "Ada Lovelace", "Charles Babbage", "Alan Turing", etc. to the same question about the origin of computers. You forg

> I've heard people answer "Grace Hopper", "Ada Lovelace", "Charles Babbage", "Alan Turing", etc. to the same question about the origin of computers. You forgot Gottfried W. Leibniz. Another question is its historical impacts: did it have any influence on its further development? A good account of history should document and analyze them from different perspectives. You can have the credit of being the "first" even it doesn't have much influence, and you can have the credit of being influential even it doesn't have much publicity. And often the story is not black-and-white. For example, we can say Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine was never completed and conclude that it has no influence on its further design. But we you know that the story of Charles Babbage helped Howard Aiken at IBM selling his machine? (Harvard Mark I).