2 ms·

Babbage Was a True Genius (2006)

17 points by teruakohatu 5y ago

PhantomGremlin 5y ago
Needs 2006 in title. Needs stupid JavaScript needed just to read it. Does stupid JavaScript games. But it's actually decent content. It's an overview of how Babbage's Analytical Engine was intended to function. The implementation problem was that what Babbage wanted was way way way over-designed. E.g. 50 decimal digit arithmetic. You know who are true geniuses in my book? The guys who wrote this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altair_BASIC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altair_BASIC They started a trillion dollar company because they were smart enough to write a program that actually worked, that turned 1970s hardware into something that was useful to a lot of people.
belter 5y ago
The problem of using the word Genius with anybody is that, to make it proportional, forces you to establish the Church of von Neumann :-)
blippage 5y ago
"On two occasions I have been asked, 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." -- Charles Babbage The article says that his engine "would have done it far better than the existing mechanisms (a room full of people adding stuff manually)." I seem to recall, though, that a bunch of people adding stuff up wasn't the only approach. I think a lot of mechanical (i.e. analogue) devices were used to perform computation (e.g. tide prediction machine https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFhjGlriDYE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFhjGlriDYE). Like a lot of tech, there was a cross-over period in which machines were quite competitive with digital devices, until the new tech eventually held sway. Here's on on a differential analyser: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqTL2JBETzE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqTL2JBETzE. You can basically solve differential equations using a series of pulleys and gears.

2 ms·

Babbage Was a True Genius (2006)

17 points by teruakohatu 5y ago

PhantomGremlin 5y ago
Needs 2006 in title. Needs stupid JavaScript needed just to read it. Does stupid JavaScript games. But it's actually decent content. It's an overview of how Babbage's Analytical Engine was intended to function. The implementation problem was that what Babbage wanted was way way way over-designed. E.g. 50 decimal digit arithmetic. You know who are true geniuses in my book? The guys who wrote this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altair_BASIC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altair_BASIC They started a trillion dollar company because they were smart enough to write a program that actually worked, that turned 1970s hardware into something that was useful to a lot of people.
belter 5y ago
The problem of using the word Genius with anybody is that, to make it proportional, forces you to establish the Church of von Neumann :-)
blippage 5y ago
"On two occasions I have been asked, 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." -- Charles Babbage The article says that his engine "would have done it far better than the existing mechanisms (a room full of people adding stuff manually)." I seem to recall, though, that a bunch of people adding stuff up wasn't the only approach. I think a lot of mechanical (i.e. analogue) devices were used to perform computation (e.g. tide prediction machine https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFhjGlriDYE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFhjGlriDYE). Like a lot of tech, there was a cross-over period in which machines were quite competitive with digital devices, until the new tech eventually held sway. Here's on on a differential analyser: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqTL2JBETzE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqTL2JBETzE. You can basically solve differential equations using a series of pulleys and gears.