HISTORY OF COMPUTING

The history of computers goes back over 200 years. At first theorised by mathematicians and entrepreneurs, during the 19th century mechanical calculating machines were designed and built to solve increasingly complex number-crunching challenges. The advancement of technology enabled ever more-complex computers by the early 20th century, and computers became larger and more powerful.

Today, computers are almost unrecognisable from the designs of the 19th century such as Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine – or even from the huge computers of the 20th century that occupied whole rooms, such as the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator.

Here’s a brief history of computers, from their primitive number-crunching origins to the powerful modern-day machines that surf the Internet, run games and stream multimedia.

1821 THE DIFFERENCE ENGINE

English mathematician Charles Babbage conceives of a steam-driven calculating machine that would be able to compute