Charles Babbage
was born on born December 26, 1971 in England and died on October 18, 1871. HE was an English mathematician, philosopher,
mechanical engineer and (proto) computer scientists who originated the idea of a programmable computer. In recognition of the high error
rate in the calculation of mathematical tables, Babbage wanted to find a method by which they could be calculte mechanically removing
human sources of error. The three different factors that influenced him were: a dislike of untideness; his experience working on
logarithimic tables; and existing work on calculating machines carried out by Wilhelim Schickard Blaise Pascal and Gottfried Leibriz.
He first discussed the principles of calculating engine in a letter to Sir Humphrey Davy in 1822.
*Babbage engines were among the first mechanical computers. They were not actually completed largely because of funding problems and
personality issues. Babbage realized that a machine could do the work better and more reliaby than human being. Babbage directed the
building of some steam-powered machines that more or less did their job, suggesting calculations could be machanized to an extent.
Although Babbage machines were mechanical monster, their basic architechture was astonishinly similar to amodern computer. The data
and program memory wer seperated, operation was instruction based, the control unit could make conditional jumps and the machine had a
seperate 1/0 unit.*Babbage designed a printer for the second difference engine which had some remarkable features, it supported
line-wrapping, variable column and row width, and programmable output formatting.