4 ms·

Obligatory comment that the Z3 was the world's first digital computer. Not sure what the "real" refers to in the headline, but it turns out that the Z3 was inde

by ff10 6y ago

Obligatory comment that the Z3 was the world's first digital computer. Not sure what the "real" refers to in the headline, but it turns out that the Z3 was indeed Turing complete. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z3_(computer) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z3_(computer)

chrisseaton 6y ago
> Not sure what the "real" refers to in the headline We all know what they mean - they mean it was American.
- redis_mlc 6y ago
  Well, Britain decided to hide everything behind the Official Secrets Act, which workers proudly maintained. And the US didn't, and here we are today on HN from California.
  - chrisseaton 6y ago
    If you didn't know, you're been hell-banned for months. That's why so few people reply to your comments. But anyway, keeping something secret doesn't mean it didn't happen. And it's now public knowledge for anyone who cares to look outside the history of the US.
    - hoseja 6y ago
      Didn't know HN has shadowbanning.
      - chrisseaton 6y ago
        You have to have a certain level of karma to be able to see shadow-banned people. Otherwise... yeah not knowing about it is kind of the point, isn't it?
        garaetjjte 6y ago
        No, you just need to enable showdead in profile settings. Certain karma amount is required for vouching permissions.
    - redis_mlc 6y ago
      > If you didn't know, you're been hell-banned for months. Of course I'm banned on HN - I'm not a leftist, right dang? I stand by what I say, and won't appease moderators. > But anyway, keeping something secret doesn't mean it didn't happen. My point was that Britain missed out on most of the IT industry growth because of the OSA. Instead that success went first to Boston, then SV. I do understand that all Britain has left is its past glory, which its citizens continually remind the US about, while we're busy doing.
      - chrisseaton 6y ago
        > I do understand that all Britain has left is its past glory, which its citizens continually remind the US about, while we're busy doing. Not sure why you needed to turn snide there after I took the time to vouch for your comment and reply to you in good faith. You can be happy about making a success of current technology, without pretending what other people did before you never existed.
      - mellosouls 6y ago
        Of course I'm banned on HN - I'm not a leftist, right dang? Very unfair. As somebody who has regularly commented here against the excesses of the left, while sometimes the silent downvoting has often been telling as to the sympathies of some, the moderation has always been scrupulously fair.
  - M2Ys4U 6y ago
    > Well, Britain decided to hide everything behind the Official Secrets Act, which workers proudly maintained. Fun fact: GCHQ still refuses to talk about some of the earliest computing work on Colossus and enigma decryption. I was quite surprised to hear this when I was on a tour of The National Museum of Computing at Bletchley Park[0]. I hope that if/when they do decide to declassify that information that they'll hand it over to TNMOC. [0] https://www.tnmoc.org/ https://www.tnmoc.org/ - It's well worth a visit so when they're open again post-COVID see if you can get down there.
    - ncmncm 6y ago
      GCHQ are embarrassed because they lost / destroyed it. "Refusing" is less embarrassing than "ooopsie!".
      - sep_field 6y ago
        do you have a source for this? I imagine you are right, but is there an interesting story about it you've seen?
        ncmncm 6y ago
        I recommend "Between Silk and Cyanide" by Leo Marks.
        redis_mlc 6y ago
        I follow WW2, and you'd be surprised that there's several areas of technology that were secret for decades afterward: - the US submarine torpedo computer (one is restored in SF now) - Lorenz streaming cipher (I think the Russians continued to use it) - Britain's entire signals intelligence process was "transferred" to the US, which made a global system still used today. - and Britain just doesn't declassify anything quickly. Some of the WW2 computer experts tried to get bank loans after the war to start mfg. companies, and I think the bank loan officers called MI5 or MI6 on them. If you follow the MSM, there's a related article or interview annually about this mindset in Britain, where most people expect to go to the grave with any knowledge from the 1940's. What's interesting about German technology was that: - Britain didn't know you could do long-range radio navigation until they detected German broadcasts - the V-1 and V-2 were thought to be fake by Churchill's science advisor until they started landing in Britain, as reliable rockets were "scifi only." The V-2 was a hypersonic ballistic missile that was designed in a Mach 5 wind tunnel, first entered space, then descended at 3600 mph. Even today that sounds like scifi. Ironically most of the advanced WW2 German technology was leaked in the "Oslo Report", but it was dismissed until horrified British scientists realized it was all true, and it was so far ahead that they couldn't understand it.
usrusr 6y ago
Who knows, perhaps if the minds behind Paperclip had been a little more data-minded: * today, Z3 might be considered "first real" and * today, we might be stuck writing code in a fossilized language lovingly called Plankalkül 58 by its inventors that had so much inertia back then that it stifled all further development in the 1960ies, with the result that all of our 2021 computing would be about as fresh as the 2021 B52.
- retrac 6y ago
  > we might be stuck writing code in a fossilized language lovingly called Plankalkül 58 by its inventors Substitute ALGOL 58 and that's pretty much what happened. You can't trust those Germans with language design!
  - usrusr 6y ago
    Haha, got me, I was just picking any "year used to name a language version" suffix at random, without realizing what corner of computing history this one is associated with. Is there anbody from that era who didn't have their own ALGOL?
jcranmer 6y ago
It's... complicated. The title of first digital computer can be argued to be ABC, Z3, Colossus, or ENIAC, and which one you give it to is going to be decided on the basis of how precisely you define "first digital computer." Given that there is also an element of nationalism to the decision (is the first computer German, British, or American?), it's not entirely unreasonable to suppose that the criteria is partially determined by the desire of whom to crown. Personally, I don't think the fact that the Z3 and the Colossus were discovered to be Turing-complete long after they were last used should really qualify them for a title based on "first Turing-complete machine." The long time it took to establish Turing-completeness indicates that they weren't designed to be Turing-complete, and that they are is more a reflection of just how low a bar it is to be Turing-complete than the capabilities of the machines themselves. In other words, I would submit that the phrase "first Turing-complete machine" should really be understood as "first intentionally Turing-complete machine." Another framework that makes sense to understand is the role that the computers had on later development of the field. ENIAC clearly has a massive influence, since it's the one that spawned more recognizable computers as its progeny. The influence of ABC on ENIAC only came out much later (and is still somewhat debated). Z3 had little impact on the field later because it was on the wrong side of WW2. Colossus I believe did influence the Manchester machines, but this link was not known at the time because of the secrecy around Colossus.

by ff10 6y ago

chrisseaton 6y ago

> Not sure what the "real" refers to in the headline We all know what they mean - they mean it was American.

redis_mlc 6y ago
Well, Britain decided to hide everything behind the Official Secrets Act, which workers proudly maintained. And the US didn't, and here we are today on HN from California.
- chrisseaton 6y ago
  If you didn't know, you're been hell-banned for months. That's why so few people reply to your comments. But anyway, keeping something secret doesn't mean it didn't happen. And it's now public knowledge for anyone who cares to look outside the history of the US.
  - hoseja 6y ago
    Didn't know HN has shadowbanning.
    - chrisseaton 6y ago
      You have to have a certain level of karma to be able to see shadow-banned people. Otherwise... yeah not knowing about it is kind of the point, isn't it?
      - garaetjjte 6y ago
        No, you just need to enable showdead in profile settings. Certain karma amount is required for vouching permissions.
  - redis_mlc 6y ago
    > If you didn't know, you're been hell-banned for months. Of course I'm banned on HN - I'm not a leftist, right dang? I stand by what I say, and won't appease moderators. > But anyway, keeping something secret doesn't mean it didn't happen. My point was that Britain missed out on most of the IT industry growth because of the OSA. Instead that success went first to Boston, then SV. I do understand that all Britain has left is its past glory, which its citizens continually remind the US about, while we're busy doing.
    - chrisseaton 6y ago
      > I do understand that all Britain has left is its past glory, which its citizens continually remind the US about, while we're busy doing. Not sure why you needed to turn snide there after I took the time to vouch for your comment and reply to you in good faith. You can be happy about making a success of current technology, without pretending what other people did before you never existed.
    - mellosouls 6y ago
      Of course I'm banned on HN - I'm not a leftist, right dang? Very unfair. As somebody who has regularly commented here against the excesses of the left, while sometimes the silent downvoting has often been telling as to the sympathies of some, the moderation has always been scrupulously fair.
- M2Ys4U 6y ago
  > Well, Britain decided to hide everything behind the Official Secrets Act, which workers proudly maintained. Fun fact: GCHQ still refuses to talk about some of the earliest computing work on Colossus and enigma decryption. I was quite surprised to hear this when I was on a tour of The National Museum of Computing at Bletchley Park[0]. I hope that if/when they do decide to declassify that information that they'll hand it over to TNMOC. [0] https://www.tnmoc.org/ https://www.tnmoc.org/ - It's well worth a visit so when they're open again post-COVID see if you can get down there.
  - ncmncm 6y ago
    GCHQ are embarrassed because they lost / destroyed it. "Refusing" is less embarrassing than "ooopsie!".
    - sep_field 6y ago
      do you have a source for this? I imagine you are right, but is there an interesting story about it you've seen?
      - ncmncm 6y ago
        I recommend "Between Silk and Cyanide" by Leo Marks.
        redis_mlc 6y ago
        I follow WW2, and you'd be surprised that there's several areas of technology that were secret for decades afterward: - the US submarine torpedo computer (one is restored in SF now) - Lorenz streaming cipher (I think the Russians continued to use it) - Britain's entire signals intelligence process was "transferred" to the US, which made a global system still used today. - and Britain just doesn't declassify anything quickly. Some of the WW2 computer experts tried to get bank loans after the war to start mfg. companies, and I think the bank loan officers called MI5 or MI6 on them. If you follow the MSM, there's a related article or interview annually about this mindset in Britain, where most people expect to go to the grave with any knowledge from the 1940's. What's interesting about German technology was that: - Britain didn't know you could do long-range radio navigation until they detected German broadcasts - the V-1 and V-2 were thought to be fake by Churchill's science advisor until they started landing in Britain, as reliable rockets were "scifi only." The V-2 was a hypersonic ballistic missile that was designed in a Mach 5 wind tunnel, first entered space, then descended at 3600 mph. Even today that sounds like scifi. Ironically most of the advanced WW2 German technology was leaked in the "Oslo Report", but it was dismissed until horrified British scientists realized it was all true, and it was so far ahead that they couldn't understand it.

usrusr 6y ago

Who knows, perhaps if the minds behind Paperclip had been a little more data-minded: * today, Z3 might be considered "first real" and * today, we might be stuck writing code in a fossilized language lovingly called Plankalkül 58 by its inventors that had so much inertia back then that it stifled all further development in the 1960ies, with the result that all of our 2021 computing would be about as fresh as the 2021 B52.

retrac 6y ago
> we might be stuck writing code in a fossilized language lovingly called Plankalkül 58 by its inventors Substitute ALGOL 58 and that's pretty much what happened. You can't trust those Germans with language design!
- usrusr 6y ago
  Haha, got me, I was just picking any "year used to name a language version" suffix at random, without realizing what corner of computing history this one is associated with. Is there anbody from that era who didn't have their own ALGOL?

jcranmer 6y ago

It's... complicated. The title of first digital computer can be argued to be ABC, Z3, Colossus, or ENIAC, and which one you give it to is going to be decided on the basis of how precisely you define "first digital computer." Given that there is also an element of nationalism to the decision (is the first computer German, British, or American?), it's not entirely unreasonable to suppose that the criteria is partially determined by the desire of whom to crown. Personally, I don't think the fact that the Z3 and the Colossus were discovered to be Turing-complete long after they were last used should really qualify them for a title based on "first Turing-complete machine." The long time it took to establish Turing-completeness indicates that they weren't designed to be Turing-complete, and that they are is more a reflection of just how low a bar it is to be Turing-complete than the capabilities of the machines themselves. In other words, I would submit that the phrase "first Turing-complete machine" should really be understood as "first intentionally Turing-complete machine." Another framework that makes sense to understand is the role that the computers had on later development of the field. ENIAC clearly has a massive influence, since it's the one that spawned more recognizable computers as its progeny. The influence of ABC on ENIAC only came out much later (and is still somewhat debated). Z3 had little impact on the field later because it was on the wrong side of WW2. Colossus I believe did influence the Manchester machines, but this link was not known at the time because of the secrecy around Colossus.