Who invented the computer? Or, for that matter, the microprocessor or the internet? If you’re after a straightforward answer you are likely to be disappointed. In technology, more than most other fields, the romantic image of the mad inventor locked away in his basement simply doesn’t chime with reality. The tablet you might be reading this on, the computer in the office and the smartphone in your pocket — all are the product of many thousands of minds stretching back well over a century.
One needs to journey all the way back to the gilded salons of 19th-century England to find the origins of the programmable computer. Even at that stage its authorship was hardly definitive. Charles Babbage devised an analytical engine in 1837 —