How did Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine resemble a modern computer?

Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine is widely considered the first design for a general-purpose, automatic digital computer. It resembled a modern computer through its architecture and functional capabilities:

• Core Components: The engine was designed with four essential parts that mirror modern systems: the "mill" (the calculating unit, analogous to a central processing unit), the "store" (for data, analogous to memory), and the reader and printer (input and output devices).12
• Programmability: By utilizing punched cards to input both data and instructions, the machine was fully programmable. This allowed it to perform any calculation set before it, a revolutionary departure from fixed-function calculators.12
• Decision-Making: The engine was designed to support conditional branching, allowing it to execute instructions out of sequence based on data values—a sophisticated feature that provides the logical flexibility found in modern computing.12

Though never completed, these design principles established the blueprint for the modern computer.13