In 1822, English mathematician Charles Babbage came up with the idea of a steam-powered computer, the difference engine, which he was able to somehow talk Parliament into funding. When it was close to being finished, however, he lost interest in his original invention and began working on a more advanced, programmable "analytic engine" (with the programs written on punch cards -- a technology I used as late as 1981), so Parliament stopped giving him money. Babbage was, apparently, too much of a genius ever to finish anything.
What's amusing, though, is the continuity of the classic computer nerd personality. From Babbage's 1864 autobiography:
On two occasions I have been asked, – "Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" In one case a member of the Upper, and in the other a member of the Lower House put this question. I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.