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I won't say that Turing is overrated, but I will say that Flowers is very, very underrated. I find it astounding that Flowers wasn't even fully compensated for

I won't say that Turing is overrated, but I will say that Flowers is very, very underrated. I find it astounding that Flowers wasn't even fully compensated for the personal expense he took to buy the bits to make Colossus. Bill Tutte also deserves a mention.

Animats 3y ago
Flowers was one of the first people to push data around with tubes. There was also an IBM group working on that before WWII, and by 1943 they had the "Vacuum Tube Multiplier" working. That eventually became the IBM 603 in 1946. I've seen one in an IBM historical display; it looks like a very large hard-sided suitcase made of perforated black metal. The 603 was a limited product built to answer the question of whether electronics could be deployed to field locations and serviced by IBM maintainers. Only 100 were built. They solved the problems of making tubes work in the field, so the IBM 604, the production version, was built in 1948. This was the beginning of IBM's line of cost-effective electronic business machines, ending with the IBM 650, which was a full scale computer affordable by businesses. Knuth learned to program on an IBM 650. Much of early computing was about getting memory that worked, tubes that worked, capacitors that worked, connectors that worked, and making the things maintainable. All that didn't really come together until the IBM 1401, which was the first mass-produced computer that Just Worked. It wasn't an architecture problem. The general ideas there had been worked out in the 1930s by Eckert at Columbia University, who came up with some insane mods to IBM tabulating machines to use them for scientific purposes. This kludge, in 1934, was the first automatic number-crunching computing machine.[1] Eckert went on to become a founder of UNIVAC. Understand, all this was being done in an era where a reliable AM radio was hard. [1] http://www.columbia.edu/cu/computinghistory/switch.html http://www.columbia.edu/cu/computinghistory/switch.html
KnobbleMcKnees 3y ago
I learned about Turing at university in the 2000s, before his personal history became a vogue subject. Specifically, I learned about Turing machines and the halting problem, alongside Von Neumann machines and such. It wasn't until later that I learned about Turing's suffering due to his sexuality. so I am quite curious: why is Flowers underrated? What contributions did he make to his fields similar to Turing's?
- adrian_b 3y ago
  Most of his important work has been done during the War and it was classified (being applied in electronic cryptographic machines), so he was not allowed to brag about it.
  - KnobbleMcKnees 3y ago
    Okay, I still struggle with the link to him being underrated if the extent of his work is unknown.
ly3xqhl8g9 3y ago
A realpolitik lesson for the scientists of the future: next time you have the power, hold it, don't squander it on politicians, begging for crumbs, grants and the decency of a private life. Oppenheimer should have continued his quote "now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds" with "bow to me mortals, cause it is I that controls the machine" not "here you go Mr. Truman, go nuts with the bombs". Also, Turing can never be overrated, beyond being the one who pulled us into a new metaphysics of computability (alongside Alonzo Church and others, sure), he will also be the one to bring the 22nd century into a new metaphysics of morphogenetic freedom [1] [2] [3]. Not sure about Flowers, but Turing knew there were realms of computationality way beyond their present tubes and levers. [1] 1952, Alan M. Turing, The Chemical Basis of Morphogenesis, https://www.dna.caltech.edu/courses/cs191/paperscs191/turing.pdf https://www.dna.caltech.edu/courses/cs191/paperscs191/turing... [2] "The Collective Intelligence of Cells During Morphogenesis with Dr. Michael Levin", https://youtu.be/p4Fm7jLNrpg?t=125 https://youtu.be/p4Fm7jLNrpg?t=125 [3] "Morphogenesis: Geometry, Physics, and Biology with Dr. Lakshminarayanan Mahadevan", https://youtu.be/b1-sEhB5h8Y?t=85 https://youtu.be/b1-sEhB5h8Y?t=85

Animats 3y ago

Flowers was one of the first people to push data around with tubes. There was also an IBM group working on that before WWII, and by 1943 they had the "Vacuum Tube Multiplier" working. That eventually became the IBM 603 in 1946. I've seen one in an IBM historical display; it looks like a very large hard-sided suitcase made of perforated black metal. The 603 was a limited product built to answer the question of whether electronics could be deployed to field locations and serviced by IBM maintainers. Only 100 were built. They solved the problems of making tubes work in the field, so the IBM 604, the production version, was built in 1948. This was the beginning of IBM's line of cost-effective electronic business machines, ending with the IBM 650, which was a full scale computer affordable by businesses. Knuth learned to program on an IBM 650. Much of early computing was about getting memory that worked, tubes that worked, capacitors that worked, connectors that worked, and making the things maintainable. All that didn't really come together until the IBM 1401, which was the first mass-produced computer that Just Worked. It wasn't an architecture problem. The general ideas there had been worked out in the 1930s by Eckert at Columbia University, who came up with some insane mods to IBM tabulating machines to use them for scientific purposes. This kludge, in 1934, was the first automatic number-crunching computing machine.[1] Eckert went on to become a founder of UNIVAC. Understand, all this was being done in an era where a reliable AM radio was hard. [1] http://www.columbia.edu/cu/computinghistory/switch.html http://www.columbia.edu/cu/computinghistory/switch.html

KnobbleMcKnees 3y ago

I learned about Turing at university in the 2000s, before his personal history became a vogue subject. Specifically, I learned about Turing machines and the halting problem, alongside Von Neumann machines and such. It wasn't until later that I learned about Turing's suffering due to his sexuality. so I am quite curious: why is Flowers underrated? What contributions did he make to his fields similar to Turing's?

adrian_b 3y ago
Most of his important work has been done during the War and it was classified (being applied in electronic cryptographic machines), so he was not allowed to brag about it.
- KnobbleMcKnees 3y ago
  Okay, I still struggle with the link to him being underrated if the extent of his work is unknown.

ly3xqhl8g9 3y ago

A realpolitik lesson for the scientists of the future: next time you have the power, hold it, don't squander it on politicians, begging for crumbs, grants and the decency of a private life. Oppenheimer should have continued his quote "now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds" with "bow to me mortals, cause it is I that controls the machine" not "here you go Mr. Truman, go nuts with the bombs". Also, Turing can never be overrated, beyond being the one who pulled us into a new metaphysics of computability (alongside Alonzo Church and others, sure), he will also be the one to bring the 22nd century into a new metaphysics of morphogenetic freedom [1] [2] [3]. Not sure about Flowers, but Turing knew there were realms of computationality way beyond their present tubes and levers. [1] 1952, Alan M. Turing, The Chemical Basis of Morphogenesis, https://www.dna.caltech.edu/courses/cs191/paperscs191/turing.pdf https://www.dna.caltech.edu/courses/cs191/paperscs191/turing... [2] "The Collective Intelligence of Cells During Morphogenesis with Dr. Michael Levin", https://youtu.be/p4Fm7jLNrpg?t=125 https://youtu.be/p4Fm7jLNrpg?t=125 [3] "Morphogenesis: Geometry, Physics, and Biology with Dr. Lakshminarayanan Mahadevan", https://youtu.be/b1-sEhB5h8Y?t=85 https://youtu.be/b1-sEhB5h8Y?t=85