109. babbage's engine: the mechanical computer (ks5)
Dissect Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine, the visionary 19th-century mechanical computer that introduced the theoretical architecture of modern programmable machines.
Over a century before the invention of the microchip, a Victorian polymath named Charles Babbage designed a fully programmable, mechanical computer driven by steam. Though never completed in his lifetime, the Analytical Engine possessed an arithmetic logic unit, control flow, and integrated memory. In this advanced module, we will dissect Babbage's blueprints to understand how he successfully conceptualised Turing-complete architecture using only brass cogs and gears.
Last modified: March 26th, 2026
