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What I find interesting is how historiography works. Babbage is widely cited as a major or even the primary originator of programmable digital computers. What I

What I find interesting is how historiography works. Babbage is widely cited as a major or even the primary originator of programmable digital computers. What I haven’t been able to get great information about is to what extent there was actually a continuous chain of influence, and to what extent we retroactively recognize that he had the ideas early. Did Turing know about Babbage? Did the ENIAC designers?

wmf 5y ago
I've wondered the same thing about Turing's influence on computers (not computer science, which is obvious). ENIAC looks nothing like a Turing machine and I assume Eckert and Mauchly were not aware of Turing's highly classified computer work at Bletchley Park.
- hyperpallium2 5y ago
  A lot of math seems like that: this cool "new" idea was actually completely worked out 200 years ago by this obscure mathematician but it didn't have any impact. (I mean, they deserve priority, but...)
  - meetups323 5y ago
    Same for computer science, no? Or anything really... ideas are cheap, seeing the bigger picture and successfully integrating with it is difficult.
  - djmips 5y ago
    Sometimes 2000 years ago. I was admiring this quarter scale multiplication algorithm on an eight bit system that used tables of squares and a clever formula to beat my fastest shift and add approach and was blown away to find out that it was known in Babylonian times.
- ravi-delia 5y ago
  Yeah, I think most would say Turing had little influence on computers per se, rather than computer science. ENIAC was built in a clear line of succession with other mechanical calculating devices of varying complexity, but if they got how fundamental a threshold they passed I'm not sure they knew it.
- tshaddox 5y ago
  I don't know the answer either, but didn't Turing design the British bombe? It's not, as far as I know, Turing complete (or even programmable), but he is quite widely known for his work on this electro-mechanical computer and not just theoretical computer science. He also worked on programmable computers after the war, and apparently is credited with the first complete design of a stored-program computer.
allturtles 5y ago
I don't think there was any continuous chain of influence. Howard Aiken[0] effectively "rediscovered" Babbage in the late 30s and presented himself as carrying on Babbage's legacy, and did a lot to popularize the connection between modern computing and Babbage. There's a chapter on this in I. Bernard Cohen's book on Aiken[1]. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_H._Aiken https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_H._Aiken [1]: https://www.google.com/books/edition/Howard_Aiken/Ld7TgLeQXs4C https://www.google.com/books/edition/Howard_Aiken/Ld7TgLeQXs...
- ncmncm 5y ago
  And Grace Hopper worked for Aiken.
- jazzyjackson 5y ago
  Thanks for the book suggestion, I recently finished "Pioneer Programmer", the autobiography of Jean Jennings Bartik and her colleages working on the ENIAC. I really enjoyed reading about that age of invention, it will be interesting to find out what was going on at Harvard that whole time.
mhh__ 5y ago
This happens with Lovelace too. As far as I'm aware she has no influence on modern computing, which has always slightly confused me because she is often raised in campaigns as a "girls can program too!"-type figure when there are lots of other women who's work is used everyday e.g. Frances Allen was one of the first to really lay down the fundamentals of optimizing compilers
- dTal 5y ago
  Lovelace gets a lot of attention because she grasped the cultural implications of computers approximately a century ahead of anyone else. She was also the first person in history to get bitten by the programming bug. As an inspirational figure, her practical day-to-day relevance is immaterial.

wmf 5y ago

I've wondered the same thing about Turing's influence on computers (not computer science, which is obvious). ENIAC looks nothing like a Turing machine and I assume Eckert and Mauchly were not aware of Turing's highly classified computer work at Bletchley Park.

hyperpallium2 5y ago
A lot of math seems like that: this cool "new" idea was actually completely worked out 200 years ago by this obscure mathematician but it didn't have any impact. (I mean, they deserve priority, but...)
- meetups323 5y ago
  Same for computer science, no? Or anything really... ideas are cheap, seeing the bigger picture and successfully integrating with it is difficult.
- djmips 5y ago
  Sometimes 2000 years ago. I was admiring this quarter scale multiplication algorithm on an eight bit system that used tables of squares and a clever formula to beat my fastest shift and add approach and was blown away to find out that it was known in Babylonian times.
ravi-delia 5y ago
Yeah, I think most would say Turing had little influence on computers per se, rather than computer science. ENIAC was built in a clear line of succession with other mechanical calculating devices of varying complexity, but if they got how fundamental a threshold they passed I'm not sure they knew it.
tshaddox 5y ago
I don't know the answer either, but didn't Turing design the British bombe? It's not, as far as I know, Turing complete (or even programmable), but he is quite widely known for his work on this electro-mechanical computer and not just theoretical computer science. He also worked on programmable computers after the war, and apparently is credited with the first complete design of a stored-program computer.

allturtles 5y ago

I don't think there was any continuous chain of influence. Howard Aiken[0] effectively "rediscovered" Babbage in the late 30s and presented himself as carrying on Babbage's legacy, and did a lot to popularize the connection between modern computing and Babbage. There's a chapter on this in I. Bernard Cohen's book on Aiken[1]. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_H._Aiken https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_H._Aiken [1]: https://www.google.com/books/edition/Howard_Aiken/Ld7TgLeQXs4C https://www.google.com/books/edition/Howard_Aiken/Ld7TgLeQXs...

ncmncm 5y ago
And Grace Hopper worked for Aiken.
jazzyjackson 5y ago
Thanks for the book suggestion, I recently finished "Pioneer Programmer", the autobiography of Jean Jennings Bartik and her colleages working on the ENIAC. I really enjoyed reading about that age of invention, it will be interesting to find out what was going on at Harvard that whole time.

mhh__ 5y ago

This happens with Lovelace too. As far as I'm aware she has no influence on modern computing, which has always slightly confused me because she is often raised in campaigns as a "girls can program too!"-type figure when there are lots of other women who's work is used everyday e.g. Frances Allen was one of the first to really lay down the fundamentals of optimizing compilers

dTal 5y ago
Lovelace gets a lot of attention because she grasped the cultural implications of computers approximately a century ahead of anyone else. She was also the first person in history to get bitten by the programming bug. As an inspirational figure, her practical day-to-day relevance is immaterial.