Today in 1888, a working version of Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine operated for the first time. Including an arithmetic logic unit, control flow, and integrated memory, Babbage’s Engine is viewed as the first Turing-complete general purpose computer. Babbage had died in 1871 without seeing his vision realized, but his son Henry Babbage subsequently built portions of the machine from his father’s drawings and computed multiples of pi to show the adequacy of the design.
Babbage’s Analytical Engine operated for the first time
