CHARLES BABBAGE

One of the creative thinker of 19Th century was the Englishman Charles Babbage(1792-1871).He is considered to be the father of computer science.Like Pascal and Leibniz,Babbage was a mathematician.And he too, wanted to build a machine that could perform difficult calculations accurately and quickly.

Babbage was Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University and started a small model of his "Different Engine".He demonstrated his machine to the Royal Society in the year1823.The demonstration won government backing for Babbage who wished to produce a large machine able to generate reliable astronomical and mathematical tables containing values accurate to 20 decimal places.the machine was never completed because of mechanical difficulties.

However,Babbage's researches led him to develop the concept of an Analytical Engine in the year 1833,essentially a general purpose automatic calculator,which he designed in 1834.This design owed much to Jacquard's invention and incorporated many features present in modern computers.He had a concept of using binary digits (Bits) in this machine.

Using his idea about 100 years later in 1973 Mark-I was developed by Howard Aiken.Idea generated by Charles Babbage can summarized in the followings points:
1. Data and the program instruction fed in via a device using a suitable medium (punched cards)
2. Storage facilities for data and instructions.
3. A mechanized unit for calculation- a "mill".
4. A suitable output device.