Campaign builds to construct Babbage Analytical Engine

Although elements of the engine have been built over the last 173 years, a complete working model of the steam-powered machine has never been made.

"A hundred years ago, before computers were available, [Babbage] had envisaged this machine."

"What you realise when you read Babbage's papers is that this was the first real computer," said Mr Graham-Cumming. "It had expandable memory, a CPU, microcode, a printer, a plotter and was programmable with punch cards.