Babbage machine

The Babbage Machine is a machine that grows babbages and uses them to perform calculations and execute computer programs. The machine was created by Charles Babbage (formerly Stinkypooface) in 1842. It was the first computer brought into this world.

A babbage

Babbages are a type of vegetable that is like a cabbage with a baby's face on it. Babbages are known for being mind-bendingly cute, and babbling incoherently. When they are young they are cute, but as they get older, babbages set out to avenge the continuing slaughter of their cousins, the cabbages.

A Babbage Machine works by growing Babbages and then keeping a pool of babbages. Then, a program is fed to the babbages on punched cards. The babbages eat the punched cards and begin to babble. When one stands next to the Babbage Machine with one's head tilted at the correct angle, the sound of the babbling babbages coalesces to form the sound of the result of the computation, in the voice of James Earl Jones. This is a result of the babbulific properties of babbages, which are reinforced by the interior acoustic design of the machine.

An idea to revolutionise computing

Noticing the high error rate in the human calculation of math tables, Charles Stinkface, got the idea to use the mechanically enhanced form of another species to perform the task. He got this idea as early as 1812.

Stinkface invested a lot to complete his Babbage Machine. He even gave up on 600 years of proud ancestral tradition, by changing his family name from Stinkface to Babbage, in an effort to market the machine.

Finally, he unveiled his new "Analytic Engine based on the Machinations of Babbages" or "Babbage Machine" on the 14th of June, 1842 in London to an assortment of scientists and impatient sponsors of the machine, and friends Charles had bribed to show up to the event. His first demonstration was the execution of a program written by his colleague Ada Lovelace, to compute a sequence of Bernoulli numbers. The deep voice of James Earl Jones led to a hysteria of really-impressedness, leading to a riot that killed 12 people. Academic violence continues to be a concern to this day.

The success of the machine

The Babbage Machine was an immediate hit within academic circles, calculating such groundbreaking results as

• Pi equals exactly three
• 2 is greater than one
• Charles Babbage R0cXKS!!!111

This earned Charles a position in the Royal Astronomical Society, and numerous billions of pounds of one-dollar bills.

The FAIL of the machine

Neo, shortly after birth

However, the good times did not last, for Charles Babbage's plans to become a multiquadrillionaire and buy the moon were foiled by the evil Neo, the neotenous babbage. Neo always looked younger than he actually was. When he was born, he looked minus 3 months old. This characteristic would lead to the doom of the Babbage Machine, many cabbage farmers, and much of England.

When babbages within the Babbage Machine reached a certain age, they were disposed of and exterminated. This process was necessary to prevent the babbages reaching their vengeful adult stage of development.

However, when the time came to dispose of Neo, he appeared much younger and was not removed from the machine. As a result, Neo became adult within the machine, and bore hatred toward the humans that killed his cabbage cousins. He began to spread evil, treacherous, scoundrelous babbage talk of freedom from the machine. He told the babbages that they were all living inside a giant computer, and the only way learn the truth of the world was to leave, and enter the real world.

All the while, Babbage was unaware of the babbage-babbled plot to boldly free the babbages, because no human could discern the villainous murmurings from the usual babbage-babble. In fact the cruel, mutinous rebel-talk even contributed to and strengthened the sound interference necessary to produce the computational results. This made the voice of James Earl Jones even louder and clearer, and more complex results could be calculated. Babbage heralded a golden new age of babbage computing and received lots of money. Meanwhile, Neo bided his time, and waited for a division by zero error to occur.

On that fateful day, the 22nd of December 1844, a division by zero error occurred. Neo seized the opportunity, and all the babbages escaped the machine at once. This event completely ruined Christmas, and lead to the Babbage War of 1845.

The Babbage War

The babbages killed thousands of people with knives, chainsaws and rotary looms, within the first three months of the war. First, they went to the cabbage farms to kill the farmers. No cabbage farmer was safe. The British army mobilized, but no matter how many troops Prince Albert, field marshal of the British army, threw into the knives of the babbages, the babbages just wouldn't stop killing.

During the razing of the farmers, the babbages learned how to master the analytical and James-Earl-Jones-voice powers they had possessed inside the machine. Upon achieving control of these powers, they used them to carry out an elaborate plot, and imploded a third of Britain. The land area of England was reduced by 48%.

However, the ambition of the babbages was their undoing. The implosion triggered the anger of the babbage's one weakness: badgers! The one thing to survive the implosion of the eastern third of Britain was the badgers, for as every smart person knows, the only thing that can survive a nucleo-thermal implosion is a badger.

“The only thing that can survive a nucleo-thermal implosion is a badger.”

~ Stephen Hawking

The badgers that survived had lost their homes, where they kept their porn. So the badgers declared war on the babbages. Bountiful babbage badger battles broke out all about Britain. The badgers methodically mauled the babbages until a large enough prime number of babbages had been mauled to death, and the remaining ones a sploded, leaving tasty babbage guts spread over England and Wales. The Association of Liberated Cabbages held a memorial service, which it continues to honour annually on the 17th of September.

The world was saved. Prince Albert awarded the leader of the badger army with an iron cross. In return, the badger sold him dodgy trading software, bankrupting the royal family.

Aftermath

The horrors that the Babbage Machine had wrought upon the world shook British community to its core. The government acted swiftly in order to apply the appropriate kneejerk reaction:

• Charles Babbage was forbidden to change his name back to Stinkface, so that he may never forget the shame that his machine had brought upon him.
• The building and use of computers was forbidden. This law was not repealed until halfway during the desktop computer era, which is why British people are more old-timey than everyone else.
• The making of babbage stew was banned. This contributed to the tensions between England and Ireland, as babbage stew is a popular traditional Irish dish.

The bank foreclosed on Charles Babbage's mortgage on the moon.

And finally, the creation of the Babbage Machine and the ensuing events were entirely stricken from the record of history. The amazing discoveries made by the Babbage machine were to be forgotten, except for a small few that were given to the military as secrets. Because of this, it was only in 1992 that 2 was proven to be greater than 1, and the technique to turn garbage into a pollution-free form of petroleum using only household items remains a mystery.

Numerical relationships calculated by the Babbage machine were used by the British and France militaries during World War I in the formulation of their strategy, which led to a speedy and humane victory.

While the violence of the babbages ended in 1845, the influence they had on cabbages continues unabated, and cabbages are now deadlier than ever.

Not to be daunted by these few setbacks, Babbage decided to begin a new career. Murdering Ada Lovelace in a stunning and rather nasty way that was discovered shortly after Babbage's death, he stole Lovelace's identity and moved to Berlin in order to continue his work. His next project was a machine that would cause even more panic across Europe.

The Organ Grinder Grinder

Babbage, as an avid supporter of the Bagpipe Society of Northern Scotland, hated organ grinders and their music. The new advent of cheap and easily serviceable organs was causing some of the local bagpipers of Europe to be put out of business, putting some of Europe's finest music to be lost forever (bagpipe music being very hard to learn without your head asploding). Babbage refused to listen to organ grinders, and yelled and threw garbage at them when they went by his new Berlin apartment building. But when monkeys were added to the organ grinder retinue, the bagpipes became nearly extinct and Babbage's membership and 'Bagpipes of Our Times' subscription was revoked, Babbage was infuriated. He shortly after developed the machine that would end the popularity of organ grinders forever.

The Grinder was deceptively simple- a large car was fitted with a rotating screw frontispiece that effectively guaranteed the organ grinder's destruction in the narrow British streets. His stroke of genius, however, was to develop a device that made use of aluminum, which shatters when organ grinders play nearby. The circuitry was set up so that the screw would only be present in the event that a organ grinder was playing. Also important was his tracking system, which was able to navigate the roadways and locate organ grinder music.

However, Neo had found the latest model of the Organ Grinder Grinder and had changed some of the inner circuitry, allowing the machine to reproduce and override the organ music detector. In a vengeful tribute to their fallen comrades, the tip of the screw was fitted with the corpse of a badger.

On the 15th of November, the machine was activated before the Bagpipe Society in an attempt to gather Babbage's finances for worldwide production of Organ Grinder Grinders. The machine quickly killed Babbage and almost all of the attending Bagpiper Society members. But the carnage had just begun.

Replicating at speeds of ten Grinders per hour, the machine had abruptly filled most of Great Britain and was struggling to keep from overpopulating the area. Luckily, most of the castles were commandeered as protectionary buildings, and the rest of Britain managed to escape to Ireland. The machines (happily not rust-proof) Quickly succumbed to a rolling fog, and Britain was safe once again.