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Was it Turing complete? Because Zuse's Z3 was. I'm not saying though, that this is a criteria for calling any machine a computer. But it's probably what sets Z
by mh-cx 10y ago
Was it Turing complete? Because Zuse's Z3 was.
I'm not saying though, that this is a criteria for calling any machine a computer. But it's probably what sets Zuse's achievement apart.
UPDATE: I've just learned that Babbage's language was also Turing complete. So Zuse's achievement is solely having physically built the first working computer, while Babbage's machine was never realized.
- elcapitan 10y agoBabbage invented the concept of the programmable computer, Zuse built a programmable electronic computer, which could later be shown to be turing-complete. Those things are pretty subtle, and the 'national' version is always the least subtle, I guess ;) Leonardo da Vinci also invented tanks and helicopters, and then it took a couple of hundred years to build some.
- lugus35 10y agoAnd Pascal invented the calculator https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_calculator https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_calculator
- dTal 10y agoSlight difference - da Vinci's tanks and helicopters wouldn't actually have worked, whereas the Analytical Engine absolutely would have.
- elcapitan 10y ago"Absolutely would have worked" is probably the closest you can get to modern software development ;) Or more seriously put: It's a concept for a machine with 55k moving parts and powered by a steam engine. "Would work" is probably a bold statement considering how far off theoretical designs always are from the engineering reality, by all experience.
- jacquesm 10y agohttp://plan28.org/ http://plan28.org/
- elcapitan 10y ago"We have been pecking away at Babbage’s original design drawings for some while now and have found with regret that we are unable to reverse engineer a coherent and consistent understanding of the Analytical Engine from the mechanical drawings alone. " http://blog.plan28.org/2016/05/spring-2016-report-to-computer.html http://blog.plan28.org/2016/05/spring-2016-report-to-compute... If you read further, it becomes pretty clear that it's more or less a theoretical idea. A great one though, granted.
- the_mitsuhiko 10y ago> Because Zuse's Z3 was. That's debatable. Maybe it was turing complete on the paper but it was never designed to be and it was not used as a turing complete machine.
- Sandman 10y ago> So Zuse's achievement is solely having physically built the first working computer, while Babbage's machine was never realized. And the fact that Z3 was based on binary, while the analytical engine wasn't.