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What If Babbage Had Succeeded?

Posted by Soulskill on from the steampunk-personal-computing dept.

mikejuk writes "It was on this day 220 years ago (December 26 1791) that Charles Babbage was born. The calculating machines he invented in the 19th century, although never fully realized in his lifetime, are rightly seen as the forerunners of modern programmable computers. What if he had succeeded? Babbage already had plans for game arcades, chess playing machines, sound generators and desktop publishing. A Victorian computer revolution was entirely possible."

1 of 212 comments (clear)

  1. What if? by AngryDeuce · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    What if the Black Death hadn't have occurred? What if Rome had never fallen? What if the Chinese had used gunpowder for more than fireworks? What if Christianity had never caught on? What if Native Americans had thrown off the colonists?

    Until we start figuring out how to travel the multiverse, it's all subjective opinion...