26 Jan
2011
26 Jan
'11
1:02 a.m.
On 2011 Jan 25, at 12:35 PM, Tony Duell wrote:
You can substitute "equation" with "a problem in symbolic
logic".
If I understand correctly what you describe I would say it falls in
category 2.
I just used equation and arithmetic as this stuff is often discussed in
relation
to the historic developments.
Actusally, like some others here, I find this 'Is
it a computer or not'
argument somewhat pointless. There are things that everybody would
class
Yes, which is why I suggested at the very beginning of the thread
"characterise, don't declare".
For the sake
of discussion, here are some incremental definitions of
'computer' (not to say that these are the only possible definitions):
1 - something that performs a computation/calculation
2 - something that executes a program automatically (solves an
equation
where the equation is more than one simple arithmetic
operation)
3 - something that is programmable (can solve a wide variety of
equations)
4 - a stored-program (/universal) machine
Waht do you call machins that contain a stored program, even a
use-alterable stored progrma with loops, conditionals and subroutines
(say) but which doesn't actually perform any numerical computations? I
have deisgned a few such things over there years -- special-purpose
programamble control systems that repond to inputs and generate
outputs.
Computers? Sequencers? Programamble controllers? Whatever you call them
they must be related to at least part of a 'computer'