A Look at the World's First Computer

WHAT: The world’s first computerWHEN: 2008HOW: A Victorian gentleman named Charles Babbage invented “Difference Engine No. 2” in 1849, but he never managed to build it. WHERE: Silicon Valley’s Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California, houses one of the world’s largest collections of dingy beige boxes and other computing artifacts. This five-ton metal contraption, finished this year according to Babbage’s original drawings, joins them through May 2009.