Image: Wikipedia
The Irish Times published a piece this week about Percy Ludgate who is believed to be Ireland's first computer scientist. In 1914 the accountant and inventor from Skibereen presented designs for the worlds second analytical engine, a mechanical computer of the time. Unlike Charles' Babbage first computer designed in 1820, Ludgate's machine was capable of addition and multiplication, was smaller in size, and used a series of stepped rods to perform the calculations and preserve numbers in the machine's memory. There are now calls to fund the building Ludgate's machine to validate the designs.
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