10 Feb
2015
10 Feb
'15
11:20 a.m.
From: Chuck Guzis
"the first electronic digital computer"
I think that's a bit of a stretch; the ABC wasn't really a computer (as we
think of them). As someone (forget the name) said, for those early machines,
if you add enough adjectives, each one is the first <something>.
Here's my list (in temporal order):
ABC - first electronic digital computing device
COLOSSUS - first large-scale electronic digital computing device heavily used
for actual work
ENIAC - first general-purpose electronic digital computing device
Manchester Baby - first operational stored-program computer
EDSAC - first stored-program computer heavily used for actual work
Noel
10 Feb
10 Feb
2:15 p.m.
On Tue, 10 Feb 2015, Noel Chiappa wrote:
Here's my list (in temporal order):
ABC - first electronic digital computing device
COLOSSUS - first large-scale electronic digital computing device heavily used
for actual work
ENIAC - first general-purpose electronic digital computing device
Manchester Baby - first operational stored-program computer
EDSAC - first stored-program computer heavily used for actual work
Thanks for breaking it out.
Unfortunately, there is a human obsession with "first", and it often
goes with an assumption that only one category can truly be declared
a "computer", resulting in rejection of all other categories.
And, sometimes after somebody makes a decision, others will be brought
up, triggering a creative redefinition of "computer" or of "first" so
as to exclude the new entry.
Is "first" a matter of which nose or which hoof crosses the finish line?
First designed?
First built?
First sold?
First shipped?
First commercially available?
First working?
Do prototypes count?
The times, technologies, and even politics became ripe for the
development. LOTS of people were building "firsts". Selecting
a "first" is an impractical art.
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
2:32 p.m.
With Baby the claim is it was the the first machine to run a program, and a
copy of the program exists. The program was chosen to be long running to
test the reliability of the machine, and validate that Williams tubes were
reliable.
Dave
G4UGM
On 10 Feb 2015 22:15, "Fred Cisin" <cisin at xenosoft.com> wrote:
On Tue, 10 Feb 2015, Noel Chiappa wrote:
Here's my list (in temporal order):
ABC - first electronic digital computing device
COLOSSUS - first large-scale electronic digital computing device heavily
used
for actual work
ENIAC - first general-purpose electronic digital computing device
Manchester Baby - first operational stored-program computer
EDSAC - first stored-program computer heavily used for actual work
Thanks for breaking it out.
Unfortunately, there is a human obsession with "first", and it often
goes with an assumption that only one category can truly be declared
a "computer", resulting in rejection of all other categories.
And, sometimes after somebody makes a decision, others will be brought
up, triggering a creative redefinition of "computer" or of "first"
so
as to exclude the new entry.
Is "first" a matter of which nose or which hoof crosses the finish line?
First designed?
First built?
First sold?
First shipped?
First commercially available?
First working?
Do prototypes count?
The times, technologies, and even politics became ripe for the
development. LOTS of people were building "firsts". Selecting
a "first" is an impractical art.
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
3603
days inactive
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cisin＠xenosoft.com -
dave.g4ugm＠gmail.com -
jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu