Kids these days, with their newfangled computer-phones, hardly bat an eye at hard drives with terabytes of space and CPUs that clock in at the gigahertz range. They probably all think computers were invented by Steve Jobs and that Bill Gates was some guy who made an electronic abacus. We’re blessed with the greatest computers every, and everyone takes them for granted.Okay, I’m honestly not at the old man ranting stage yet, but it’s easy to forget that, while some of us act high-and-mighty because they remember when AOL keywords were an integral part of advertising, computers have been around a hell of a lot longer than any of us. In fact, they’ve been around for 180 years. Yep, you read that right.There’s been a resurgence of interest of late in Charles Babbage, the inventor of the punch card-powered Analytical Engine, a truly mechanical computer. Babbage is a steampunk legend, featured prominently in works like William Gibson and Bruce Sterling’s The Difference Engine, but now he’s receiving love again as a group in the U.K. tries to build a fully-functional Analytical Engine. The group is led by John Graham-Cumming, who explains above just how the locomotive-sized computer works. Just don’t expect to fit an engine in your pocket.Follow Derek Mead on Twitter: @drderekmead.