3 ms·
It's easy to laugh at quotes like this, but they really had a different understanding of the word computer than we do. These machines were in fact huge and requ
by rvense 2y ago
It's easy to laugh at quotes like this, but they really had a different understanding of the word computer than we do. These machines were in fact huge and required specialists to use and didn't really do much except calculate. It's fairer to say that they were misjudging what computers would become.
I'm not sure I can say that I would have been able to look at an early 1950's computer and imagine a 1960's DEC or IBM machine under every bank, or whatever, much less desktop publishing or Defender of the Crown...
- codeulike 2y agoOh yes definitely. But its fascinating because its looking back at the dawn of a completely new thing in the world, and how hard it was for people to see where it was going to go. Interestingly if you look back at Alan Turing's writing around that time, he seemed to have a much better grasp of what a _big_deal_ this was all going to be. It would be amazing to go and fetch Turing with a time machine and bring him to our time. Show him an iPhone, his face on the UK £50 note, and Wikipedia's list of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_openly_LGBT_heads_of_state_and_government https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_openly_LGBT_heads_of_s...
- philipwhiuk 2y ago> It's easy to laugh at quotes like this, but they really had a different understanding of the word computer than we do. These machines were in fact huge and required specialists to use and didn't really do much except calculate. It's fairer to say that they were misjudging what computers would become. Or were they predicting what is yet to come. "These machines were in fact huge and required specialists to use" Sounds like Azure to me.