The mechanism was salvaged off the coast of the island of Antikythera in 1900. Ever since then, people have been wondering what the heck it was for. I mean, here’s a device made in 150 BC, of a complexity that wouldn’t be seen again for a thousand years.
Early speculation on the device’s nature thought it [...]
The Colossus Mark II was one of the first modern computers ever built, way back in 1944, and used to break cryptographic codes intercepted by the allies. When the war was over, Winston Churchill ordered the machines to be destroyed.
Now, through the efforts of a man named Tony Sale, a working copy of the [...]
Charles Babbage, widely regarded as the father of computing, was a typical hacker.
He never completed the first Difference Engine, instead designing a more advanced Difference Engine, and later he produced several incomplete designs for a yet more advanced Analytic Engine.
None of his computing machines were built within his lifetime. But now, more than 150 years [...]
