Jonathan Swift publishes Gulliver’s Travels and includes a description of the Engine.

In Gulliver’s Travels, “the Engine” is a device that shuffles words into new combinations, essentially serving as a prototype for a mechanical text generator. “The Engine” is one of the earliest references to a device resembling the modern computer.

Benjamin Motte published the book in London in1726. The Engine appears in Part III, at the Academy of Lagado, where pupils turn iron handles to rearrange wooden blocks bearing words, so that “the most ignorant person” might write books. Sound Familiar?