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I don’t follow. When you have to build a device pretty much by hand, why bother building a general purpose machine? And here we are, 181 years after Babbage f

I don’t follow. When you have to build a device pretty much by hand, why bother building a general purpose machine? And here we are, 181 years after Babbage first described his Analytic Engine and Aplication Specific Integrated Circuits and Graphics Processing Units are all the rage.

TeMPOraL 8y ago
> When you have to build a device pretty much by hand, why bother building a general purpose machine? Because you'd conquer many industries with it simultaneously. Instant path to richness. > And here we are, 181 years after Babbage first described his Analytic Engine and Aplication Specific Integrated Circuits and Graphics Processing Units are all the rage. It's a different thing. We usually first figure a description of a computation - one that could be run on a general-purpose machine - and then turn it into ASIC to make it more efficient, by performing only the work necessary for that one particular calculation. Back in Babbage's times, they didn't have a coherent notion of computation yet.
- TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
  > Because you'd conquer many industries with it simultaneously. Instant path to richness. I just mean to say, from my limited knowledge, the available applications were all (mostly?) bespoke anyways, so the inputs and outputs probably needed to be also. So perhaps a modular mechanical general purpose computer may have helped. > It's a different thing. Yes, you've made a good point, I agree. Perhaps, then, if you were to build a general purpose mechanical computer ~180 years ago you might use it for whatever application is required, observe it's most commonly used computational paths, then swap it out for an application specific computer. of (possibly?) reduced complexity. You can then take your whizz-bang-high-tech-expensive computer to the next client, rinse and repeat. Maybe.
  - TeMPOraL 8y ago
    > So perhaps a modular mechanical general purpose computer may have helped. That's what I was imagining when writing that comment. And I suppose experience turning computation into work in one industry would let you design bespoke endpoints for another faster.

TeMPOraL 8y ago

> When you have to build a device pretty much by hand, why bother building a general purpose machine? Because you'd conquer many industries with it simultaneously. Instant path to richness. > And here we are, 181 years after Babbage first described his Analytic Engine and Aplication Specific Integrated Circuits and Graphics Processing Units are all the rage. It's a different thing. We usually first figure a description of a computation - one that could be run on a general-purpose machine - and then turn it into ASIC to make it more efficient, by performing only the work necessary for that one particular calculation. Back in Babbage's times, they didn't have a coherent notion of computation yet.

TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
> Because you'd conquer many industries with it simultaneously. Instant path to richness. I just mean to say, from my limited knowledge, the available applications were all (mostly?) bespoke anyways, so the inputs and outputs probably needed to be also. So perhaps a modular mechanical general purpose computer may have helped. > It's a different thing. Yes, you've made a good point, I agree. Perhaps, then, if you were to build a general purpose mechanical computer ~180 years ago you might use it for whatever application is required, observe it's most commonly used computational paths, then swap it out for an application specific computer. of (possibly?) reduced complexity. You can then take your whizz-bang-high-tech-expensive computer to the next client, rinse and repeat. Maybe.
- TeMPOraL 8y ago
  > So perhaps a modular mechanical general purpose computer may have helped. That's what I was imagining when writing that comment. And I suppose experience turning computation into work in one industry would let you design bespoke endpoints for another faster.