WEBVTT - What Was the First Computer? 0:00:02.040 --> 0:00:06.720 Welcome to brain Stuff. From How Stuff Works Pay Brain 0:00:06.760 --> 0:00:10.160 Stuff Lauren Volga bam Here, who invented the first computer. 0:00:10.680 --> 0:00:13.200 One could argue that the abacus was the first computer, 0:00:13.560 --> 0:00:16.680 or its descendant, the slide rule, invented by William Outred 0:00:16.760 --> 0:00:20.800 in sixteen twenty two, but the first computer resembling today's 0:00:20.840 --> 0:00:24.320 modern machines was the analytical Engine, a device conceived and 0:00:24.360 --> 0:00:28.000 designed by British mathematician Charles Babbage between eighteen thirty three 0:00:28.040 --> 0:00:31.960 and eighteen seventy one. Before Babbage came along, our computers 0:00:31.960 --> 0:00:35.200 were people who sat around all day adding and subtracting 0:00:35.240 --> 0:00:38.519 numbers and entering the results into tables. The tables then 0:00:38.520 --> 0:00:40.760 appeared in books so that other people could use them 0:00:40.800 --> 0:00:44.199 to complete tasks such as launching artillery shells accurately or 0:00:44.280 --> 0:00:48.400 calculating taxes. It was in fact, a mammoth number crunching 0:00:48.440 --> 0:00:52.160 project that inspired Babbage in the first place. Napoleon Bonaparte 0:00:52.159 --> 0:00:55.120 initiated the project in seventeen ninety when he ordered to 0:00:55.160 --> 0:00:57.680 switch from the old Imperial system of measurements to the 0:00:57.760 --> 0:01:01.880 new metric system. For ten years, scores of human computers 0:01:01.920 --> 0:01:05.920 made the necessary conversions and completed the tables. Monapart was 0:01:05.959 --> 0:01:08.520 never able to publish the tables, however, and they sat 0:01:08.600 --> 0:01:12.319 collecting dust in the Academy the Sciences in Paris. In 0:01:12.360 --> 0:01:16.199 eighteen nineteen, Babbage visited Paris and viewed the unpublished manuscript 0:01:16.240 --> 0:01:19.320 with page after page of tables. If only, he wondered, 0:01:19.400 --> 0:01:21.840 there was a way to produce such tables faster, with 0:01:21.920 --> 0:01:24.920 less manpower and fewer mistakes. He thought of the many 0:01:24.959 --> 0:01:28.680 marvels generated by the Industrial Revolution. If creative and hard 0:01:28.680 --> 0:01:32.000 working inventors could develop the cotton engine and the steam locomotive, 0:01:32.280 --> 0:01:36.440 then why not a machine to make calculations. Babbage returned 0:01:36.440 --> 0:01:39.080 to England and decided to build just such a machine. 0:01:39.520 --> 0:01:42.360 His first vision was something he dubbed the difference engine, 0:01:42.560 --> 0:01:45.639 which worked on the principle of finite differences, or making 0:01:45.680 --> 0:01:50.920 complex mathematical calculations by repeated addition without using multiplication or division. 0:01:51.560 --> 0:01:54.240 He secured government funding in eighteen twenty four and spent 0:01:54.360 --> 0:01:57.640 eight years perfecting his idea. In eighteen thirty two, he 0:01:57.680 --> 0:02:01.040 produced a functioning prototype of his table making machine, only 0:02:01.080 --> 0:02:04.360 to find his funding had run out. Some people might 0:02:04.440 --> 0:02:08.120 have been discouraged, but not Babbage. Instead of simplifying his design. 0:02:08.160 --> 0:02:10.760 To make the difference Engine easier to build, he turned 0:02:10.800 --> 0:02:14.400 his attention to an even grander idea, the Analytical Engine, 0:02:14.639 --> 0:02:17.440 a new kind of mechanical computer that could make even 0:02:17.440 --> 0:02:22.400 more complex calculations, including multiplication and division. The basic parts 0:02:22.400 --> 0:02:25.240 of the Analytical Engine resemble the components of any computer 0:02:25.280 --> 0:02:28.280 sold on the market today. It featured two hallmarks of 0:02:28.320 --> 0:02:32.399 any modern machine, a central processing unit or CPU, and 0:02:32.639 --> 0:02:35.680 memory a Babbage, of course, didn't use those terms. He 0:02:35.800 --> 0:02:38.840 called the CPU the mill and the memory the store. 0:02:39.400 --> 0:02:42.480 He also had a device, the reader, to input instructions, 0:02:42.600 --> 0:02:45.120 as well as a way to record on paper results 0:02:45.120 --> 0:02:48.880 generated by the machine. Babbage called this output device a printer, 0:02:49.080 --> 0:02:53.040 which makes perfect sense to me. Babbage's new invention existed 0:02:53.080 --> 0:02:56.880 almost entirely on paper. He kept voluminous notes and sketches 0:02:56.919 --> 0:03:00.280 about his computers, nearly five thousand pages worth, and although 0:03:00.280 --> 0:03:03.440 he never built a single production model of the Analytical Engine, 0:03:03.520 --> 0:03:05.880 he had a clear vision about how the machine would 0:03:05.880 --> 0:03:09.320 look and work. Borrowing the same technology used by the 0:03:09.400 --> 0:03:12.440 Jacard Loom, which was a weaving machine developed in eighteen 0:03:12.440 --> 0:03:14.800 o four that made it possible to create a variety 0:03:14.840 --> 0:03:18.360 of cloth patterns automatically. Babbage's data would be entered on 0:03:18.480 --> 0:03:22.239 punched cards. Up to one thousand, fifty digit numbers could 0:03:22.280 --> 0:03:25.560 be held in the computer's store. Punched cards would also 0:03:25.600 --> 0:03:28.560 carry the instructions which the machine could execute out of 0:03:28.560 --> 0:03:32.519 sequential order. A single attendant would oversee the whole operation, 0:03:32.680 --> 0:03:36.320 but steam would power it, turning cranks, moving cams and rods, 0:03:36.480 --> 0:03:39.920 and spinning gear wheels. But if Babbage was a genius 0:03:39.920 --> 0:03:43.480 behind the Analytical Engine, then Augusta Ada Byron or Ada 0:03:43.560 --> 0:03:47.880 Lovelace was its publicist and arguably the very first computer programmer. 0:03:48.480 --> 0:03:50.520 She met Babbage at a party when she was seventeen 0:03:50.560 --> 0:03:53.280 and became fascinated by the idea of the analytical Engine. 0:03:53.640 --> 0:03:57.520 From that chance meeting grew a strong dynamic relationship. Lovelace 0:03:57.640 --> 0:04:00.960 was gifted in mathematics and offered Babbage numerous insights. In 0:04:01.000 --> 0:04:03.720 eighteen forty three, she published an influential set of notes 0:04:03.760 --> 0:04:07.920 describing the Analytical Engine. She also added in some stage predictions, 0:04:07.960 --> 0:04:11.560 calculating that Babbage's mechanical computers might one day act upon 0:04:11.680 --> 0:04:15.440 other things besides numbers, and even compose elaborate and scientific 0:04:15.480 --> 0:04:19.760 pieces of music of any degree of complexity. Unfortunately, the 0:04:19.800 --> 0:04:23.000 technology of the day could not deliver on their ambitious designs. 0:04:23.400 --> 0:04:27.040 It wasn't until nineteen that their particular ideas were finally 0:04:27.080 --> 0:04:31.080 translated into a functioning computer. That's when the Science Museum 0:04:31.080 --> 0:04:35.120 in London built to Babbage's exact specifications a Difference Engine. 0:04:35.480 --> 0:04:38.080 It stands eleven feet long and seven feet tall that's 0:04:38.080 --> 0:04:41.039 about three meters long and two meters tall, contains eight 0:04:41.080 --> 0:04:44.440 thousand moving parts and ways fifteen tons or just over 0:04:44.520 --> 0:04:47.120 thirteen and a half metric tons. A copy of the 0:04:47.160 --> 0:04:50.000 machine was built and shipped to the Computer History Museum 0:04:50.080 --> 0:04:53.360 in Mountain View, California, where it remained on display until December. 0:04:54.640 --> 0:04:57.040 Neither device would function on a desktop, but they are 0:04:57.080 --> 0:05:00.000 no doubt the first computers and precursors to the modern 0:05:00.040 --> 0:05:07.960 in PC. Today's episode was written by William Harris and 0:05:07.960 --> 0:05:10.520 produced by Tyler Clang. For more on this and lots 0:05:10.520 --> 0:05:13.480 of other analytical topics, visit our home planet, how Stuff 0:05:13.520 --> 0:05:25.440 Works dot com.