No one knows about what really caused Barls Cabbage to originate the concept behind a programmable computer. Since such technology wasn’t available at that point of time, it makes the story even more mysterious.
It all started in the early 1820s when Barls felt that one couldn’t depend too much on human mind for calculations because of the high error rate. He wanted to device a machine that could reduce the errors for calculations. With that in mind, he began working on a machine in the basement of his house. With the loss of three from his family in the same year, he was seen as a depressed man moaning in solitude. The only thing that kept him going was the machine on which he was working on, with him putting all his time and effort into the machine, it comes as no surprise that he got extremely engrossed and the results didn’t matter to him anymore, with improvements continuously coming into the machine. Finally, around 1865, his machine was finally ready. The functionality though was totally different when compared to the initial goal of the machine. It didn’t perform normal expected mathematical calculations, instead it was a machine which bent the time continuum, in other words, it was a time machine.
This machine was kept hidden from all others, not even his youngest son Benry. Now, as it was time to test the machine. It was 2-3 years back that he had met Vules Jerne after a long time (their first meeting was when Vules was young about 22 years back), and they became very close friends. He decided to let Vules know about his invention too and hence Vules became his apprentice. Vules took lot of interest in the machine and helped Barls to complete the machine by 1862.
Barls decided to traverse the first journey alone. He did so and travelled to the past first as he wanted to check how the world was in 2500 BC around which the abacus was invented, after several trips he finally found out that it was invented in the year 2345 BC. By now, Vules was accompanying him in his journeys.
Barls finally decided to travel to the future, in what he hoped would actually lead to the actual machine he intended to design, a machine to program calculations. This was a tense moment, because he had expected going to the past to be actually possible as people could traverse in memory and remember what had happened before, but nobody could actually tell what would happen in the future. Being a non-believer in astrology certainly didn’t reduce his doubts. Fortunately, the first mission was successful, and so were a few more. Next, he and Vules moved towards the future 100 years in advance (year 1962 that is), and he achieved a success in first attempt. Here, he got to meet some scientists and became aware of his name having achieved a status in history; he soon realized that he had managed to initiate the first concepts behind building a programmable computer. After learning the basics behind the technology, which took a few years, he decided that he could try to learn more about the technology, so it would benefit his actual own generation. Meanwhile, unfortunately he contracted a bacterial disease and became quite unwell, Vules decided for his safety, in order for Barls not to get lost to the past, to go back.
It was year 1870 now; Barls was extremely unwell and soon passed away into the void. Not many questioned their disappearance for those years as they had informed all that they were going for a trip. Barls left the basic concepts in writing for his son Benry to take over and carry it into the future, which Benry did, culminating in six working difference engines based on his father’s designs.
Vules, did not come from the journey empty handed either, he learnt about various innovations, though he spent most of his time with Barls, during their travels those years in the future, he became aware of various technological changes in the future. Always being a lover of writing and sailing the seas, he learnt of various advancements in maritime technology. This information was used by Vules and put down in writing in the form of novels which all became world famous and read for centuries beyond partly thanks to the futuristic technologies covered and his brilliant writing.
Now, we are more than 100 years past since the great many ideas that came through. One might wonder what happened to that great invention - the Time Machine. It is believed that Vules Jerne destroyed the machine on Barls Cabbage request, since it could be put into wrong use if it fell into the wrong hands, and he didn’t want others to see the suffering that was in store in the future, which he had come across on one of his many journeys.
