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From what I understood, Babbage invented his computers himself. Lovelace was helpful to him because of her high-society connection. He was hoping to popularise
by mafribe 10y ago
From what I understood, Babbage invented his computers himself. Lovelace was helpful to him because of her high-society connection. He was hoping to popularise his work and get more funding.
- vanderZwan 10y agoEven if it was the case that she was a "mere" patron who was into the science behind the machine itself and helped with popularising it, few people would downplay the importance of Steve Jobs for the course of computer history. So by that logic, either way we look at it she changed the course of technology.
- a_imho 10y agoAgree on the Lovelace part, but outside the Apple bubble many don't really place Steve Jobs that high in the pantheon of computing and I predict his cult status won't last as many of his contemporaries.
- deepnet 10y agoJobs got all his computing innovations from Xerox Parc & Woz. That he transformed society by successfully commercialising those ideas is undisputable. Alan Kay's Dynabook was an innovation, Jobs realised this innovation in the iPhone, transforming society as Kay predicted truly portable computers would. Again with windowing & GUIs, without Jobs Xerox Parc's ideas may have been lost to history. So he did radically change the course of technology which is the OPs title. Innovations languish without succesful implementation.
- tomlock 10y agoHave a read of the "Notes by the Translator": http://www.fourmilab.ch/babbage/sketch.html http://www.fourmilab.ch/babbage/sketch.html Do you now think Lovelace was only useful to Babbage in the manner you describe?