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by r4ge 63 days ago
Charles Babbage designed his difference engine that was mechanical and used punch cards for loading programs. The machine was mechanical and used a steam engine to power it.
1 comments

And they weren't just hypothetical curiosities. Many companies manufactured variants of the concept.

Desktop mechanical adding machines continued to be used in offices all the way up to the 1970s when electronics finally replaced them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CNqWY_kNZ8