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> Computers are just really fast calculators. In what way is a Universal Turing Machine equivalent, stored-program, probably Von Neumann architecture computer
by pdkl95 11y ago
> Computers are just really fast calculators.
In what way is a Universal Turing Machine equivalent, stored-program, probably Von Neumann architecture computer in any way "really just" a fast calculator? The computer may contain an ALU, but the ability to change the program makes the computer capable of far more that a fancy ALU (calculator).
There are a lot of people that wish they could stuff the genie called "Turing complete" back in its bottle and go back to the days of selling merely a calculator (or "app"liance), but as Cory Doctorow put it[1], "...an appliance is not a stripped-down computer -- it is a fully functional computer with spyware on it out of the box."
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUEvRyemKSg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUEvRyemKSg
- scott_s 11y agoWhen computers first became a thing, that's what people thought of them as. Many did not see their potential outside of raw number crunching. ordinary's position, which I share, is that the "smartphones are just portable computers" sentiment is repeating this mistake.