HALL OF FAME
Charles Babbage (1791-1871)
Charles Babbage was an eccentric, English mathematician who is considered to have conceptualised the modern computer a century before technology let it be built. He entered Cambridge in 1810 but was unhappy with the teaching there. He set up the Analytical Society there in 1812, with two of the most prominent members being John Herschel and George Peacock. He graduated in 1814, and at the age of 24 was elected to the Royal Society of London.

In 1819 he prototyped the Difference Engine, a machine that would have computed lengthy scientific tables, and completed a small model in 1822, when he published his paper Note on the application of machinery to the computation of astronomical and mathematical tables. Money, labour, and health problems prevented the full production model of this machine from being released. It was left to Georg and Edvard Schuetz to construct the first working devices of the same design. In 1834 he completed the first drawings for the Analytical Engine, a more ambitious machine, which would have done a wide range of calculating tasks, the forerunner of the modern computer. With it, Babbage recognised the need for an input device, memory, a central processing unit, and an output device, and for this he is known as the Father of Computing.