history A design for a general-purpose digital computer proposed by
Charles Babbage in 1837 as a successor to his earlier special-purpose
Difference Engine.
The Analytical Engine was to be built from brass gears powered by steam with input given on
punched cards. Babbage could never secure enough funding to build it, and so it was, and never has been, constructed.
(https://fourmilab.ch/babbage/).
(1998-10-19)