The introduction of punched cards crystallized Babbage's feeling that he had invented something really new, something more than just a sophisticated calculating machine.

He wrote in his notebook on July 10, 1836, "This day I had for the first time a general but very distinct conception of the possibility of making an engine work out of algebraic development." Babbage had a paper completed the invention of what is today "the general purpose digital computer."

Few people understood Babbage's work or realized its significance.