As China’s largest official scientific body, CAST’s claim to the world’s earliest computer is a big deal. It comes at a time ...

The computer, at its core, is an input-output device: it receives instructions, executes programmes, performs calculations ...

The origin story of software takes us back past punch card computers and Babbage’s Difference Engine to a French weaver called Joseph Marie Jacquard. Jacquard created a way to automate mechanical ...

Sophisticated silk-weaving loom dating back to the Western Han dynasty used physical pattern cards which acted like ancient software.