20 Nov
2003
20 Nov
'03
1:31 a.m.
On Wed, 19 Nov 2003, William R. Buckley wrote:
Both systems, analog computers and unit record equipment use plug boards
for programming. It may even be that the plug board as a physical item does
not exist, in which case the analog computer is programmed by a means of
wires hanging all about. For both cases, the mechanism of programming is
identical. The point is the means of programming.
You're missing the point, which is that your analogy is invalid. They may
use the same manner of "programming", but the way they "compute" are
two
entirely different things, and that is what is relevant here.
--
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
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Moreover, there is the _analog computer_ with
programming very
similar to the unit record equipment, and such machines have always
been known as computers.
Hardly. That's like saying French and Spanish are the same language
because they share a common character set. They are computers in a wholly
different sense of the word and have nothing at all to do with a Turing
Machine, and thereby this discussion has suddenly drifted off into bizarre
and meaningless abstracts.