Babbage, father of computers, tried to summon the devil

Charles Babbage, one of the fathers of computing, tried to summon the devil in order to prove God existed.

According to Io9, Babbage first tried to summon the devil when he was a schoolboy in Alphington, Devon.

Calling upon the prince of darkness was apparently a pretty normal pass time for English schoolboys, but apparently Babbington was more methodical in his approach then most.

"As I only desired an interview with the gentleman in black simply to convince my senses of his existence, I declined adopting the legal forms of a bond, and preferred one more resembling that of leaving a visiting card, when, if not at home, I might expect the satisfaction of a return of the visit by the devil in person," Babbage wrote of his attempt to contact the devil.

However after cutting his finger, drawing a circle around himself on the floor and saying the lord's prayer backwards, no devil appeared.

Babbage would go on to create mechanical computers, achieving modest success with steam-powered machines that suggested that calculations could be mechanised.

However after ten years of funding, the UK government eventually confidence in him. That said, the machines' basic architecture was similar to that of the modern computer and thus he is frequently credited as one of computing's pioneers.