First computer ever, the Babbage Engine, may finally be built

The earliest computer ever designed was Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine, which he conceived of way back in 1837. Unfortunately, he never completed it, and to this day a fully-functioning model has never been built. But that's about to change.

Now, blogger John Graham-Cumming is trying to raise about $640,000 to build the steam-powered contraption using the original blueprints. As he says, "What you realise when you read Babbage's papers is that this was the first real computer. It had expandable memory, a CPU, microcode, a printer, a plotter and was programmable with punch cards. It was the size of a small lorry and powered by steam but it was recognizable as a computer." And it would be pretty amazing to see it in action almost 200 years after it was initially designed. Want to donate to the cause? Click here.

Looks like it could it could take a hand off. Or poke an eye out at least. The spinning jenny ain't got shit on this.

rofl, certainly would be an interesting revival of old technology... would be amazing for hobbyists, I assume.

As long as you could find the blueprints.

It sounds like they have the blueprints, but I suppose they never used them to build the thing.