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What Did Ada Lovelace’s Program Actually Do?

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Re: What Did Ada Lovelace’s Program Actually Do?

#41

Post by blattimwind »

jordigh wrote: post #39
haihaibye wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was the first published program but not the first. To be the first, you have to believe Babbage designed a general purpose computer that could accept instructions and never wrote any instructions. https://www.bbvaopenmind.com/en/ada-lovelace-original-and-vi... “I confirm that the manuscript evidence clearly shows that Babbage wrote ‘programs’ for his Analytical Engine in 1836-7 i.e. 6-7 years before the publicatio…

It really depends what you mean by "program". Would you argue that the Euclidean algorithm from two millenia prior was a program? Ada Lovelace was the first to realise that the analytical engine would perform arbitrary tasks and wrote programs for those arbitrary task, beyond computational operations. Of course Babbage who designed the hardware had some idea of what programs it could run and presented examples, but h…

> It really depends what you mean by "program".

A [computer] program is a sequence of instructions executable by a machine (the computer).

> Would you argue that the Euclidean algorithm from two millenia prior was a program?

It's in the name: EA is an algorithm.

Re: What Did Ada Lovelace’s Program Actually Do?

#42

Post by ktRolster »

TangoTrotFox wrote: post #15
scarecrowbob wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me, that's no big deal: 10 PRINT "HELLO WORLD" Even the horrible crap I wrote as an novice is probably less embarrassing to me that the stuff I wrote as a journeyman who shoulda known better. Thankfully, the most embarrassing things are, like, spending 2 days configuring postfix and not realizing that I could just read the log files and it tells me specifically what isn't working. A valuable lesson, but embarrass…

Hahaha, mine: mov ah, 2 mov dl, 7 int 21 int 20 Discovering that I could write my own programs with debug.com was earth shaking. Picked up some decade old book on it at Half Price Books (which went well with my decade old machine -- an 80s model IBM with integrated monochrome green screen) and never looked back.

I can smell your program. All that new hardware around me. The smell of dot matrix ink.

Re: What Did Ada Lovelace’s Program Actually Do?

#43

Post by jordigh »

There is a very lucid graphical explanation of the hardware of the difference and analytical engines functions in a lengthy appendix to The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage. I really love this book and I can't recommend it enough. I wish it were adapted into animation! It is historical fantasy of the highest calibre.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thrilling_Adventures_of_Lo...

Re: What Did Ada Lovelace’s Program Actually Do?

#44

Post by jfk13 »

lostlogin wrote: post #17
kornish wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What else would you recommend checking out in Paris by way of museums?

The National Museum of Natural History is unlike any other I’ve been to. It is fairly worn out but is great. It is displayed in a very different t format to what I’m used to. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Museum_of_Natural_H... Quiet and completely excellent, The Museum of Heritage and Architecture. https://www.unjourdeplusaparis.com/en/paris-culture/musee-ci... The Army Museum is worth a visit - it is int…

If you want to see an outstanding collection of art without having to face the Louvre crowds, try the Musée d'Orsay: a vastly more pleasant experience, IMO. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musée_d%27Orsay

Re: What Did Ada Lovelace’s Program Actually Do?

#45

Post by corpMaverick »

acqq wrote: post #24

The "C translation" of the program by the article author: https://gist.github.com/sinclairtarget/ad18ac65d277e453da5f4... It's definitely far from being trivial! Also note the use of floats in the C version. A lot of simpler CPUs didn't and still don't have floats. Fascinatingly, the Analytical Engine's number representation was 40 digits (and later: 50)(!) base 10 (but not "floating" but "fixed" point): https://www.…

In case anyone missed it, these last two articles were written by John Walker. Founder of Autodesk, Inc. and co-author of AutoCAD.

Re: What Did Ada Lovelace’s Program Actually Do?

#46

Post by jordigh »

blattimwind wrote: post #41
jordigh wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really depends what you mean by "program". Would you argue that the Euclidean algorithm from two millenia prior was a program? Ada Lovelace was the first to realise that the analytical engine would perform arbitrary tasks and wrote programs for those arbitrary task, beyond computational operations. Of course Babbage who designed the hardware had some idea of what programs it could run and presented examples, but h…

> It really depends what you mean by "program". A [computer] program is a sequence of instructions executable by a machine (the computer). > Would you argue that the Euclidean algorithm from two millenia prior was a program? It's in the name: EA is an algorithm.

By that definition, Babbage didn't write a program either. He didn't write opcodes. You still need a human "compiler" to translate Babbage's writing into something that could run on the engines.

Btw, this human "compiler" job was for a long time considered to be inferior work and part of the reason why the first professional software developers in mid 20th century were largely women: it was considered clerical work to translate algorithms from paper into computer programs. The Computer Girls is a good article that describes these attitudes.

http://homes.soic.indiana.edu/nensmeng/files/ensmenger-gende...

Re: What Did Ada Lovelace’s Program Actually Do?

#47

Post by onemoresoop »

ktRolster wrote: post #42
TangoTrotFox wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hahaha, mine: mov ah, 2 mov dl, 7 int 21 int 20 Discovering that I could write my own programs with debug.com was earth shaking. Picked up some decade old book on it at Half Price Books (which went well with my decade old machine -- an 80s model IBM with integrated monochrome green screen) and never looked back.

I can smell your program. All that new hardware around me. The smell of dot matrix ink.

Yes! I remember my first experience with a PC in the 80s was with a Robotron 8086 PC. It did emanate a smell and I could hear interesting mechanical sounds from inside. The motherboard was huge and it had a small 14 inch monochrome green monitor on top of it.

Re: What Did Ada Lovelace’s Program Actually Do?

#48

Post by garmaine »

kornish wrote: post #9
zaroth wrote: post #4

Holy shit. I got shivers the moment I realized Sinclair actually finds and fixes a bug from the very first program written in 1843. In her “diagram of development,” Lovelace gives the fourth operation as v5 / v4. But the correct ordering here is v4 / v5. 1843! I was recently at the Musee des arts et metiers in Paris, and they have several original Pascalines on display. So many marvels packed into a very tight space,…

What else would you recommend checking out in Paris by way of museums?

The Louvre must be on any list.

Re: What Did Ada Lovelace’s Program Actually Do?

#49

Post by gregschlom »

kornish wrote: post #9
zaroth wrote: post #4

Holy shit. I got shivers the moment I realized Sinclair actually finds and fixes a bug from the very first program written in 1843. In her “diagram of development,” Lovelace gives the fourth operation as v5 / v4. But the correct ordering here is v4 / v5. 1843! I was recently at the Musee des arts et metiers in Paris, and they have several original Pascalines on display. So many marvels packed into a very tight space,…

What else would you recommend checking out in Paris by way of museums?

My favorite is La Cité des Sciences, although it's not really a museum but more of an exhibition place for all things related to science.

Used to go there all the time as a kid, especially to read 2600 magazine in the library.

Re: What Did Ada Lovelace’s Program Actually Do?

#50

Post by atombender »

kornish wrote: post #9
zaroth wrote: post #4

Holy shit. I got shivers the moment I realized Sinclair actually finds and fixes a bug from the very first program written in 1843. In her “diagram of development,” Lovelace gives the fourth operation as v5 / v4. But the correct ordering here is v4 / v5. 1843! I was recently at the Musee des arts et metiers in Paris, and they have several original Pascalines on display. So many marvels packed into a very tight space,…

What else would you recommend checking out in Paris by way of museums?

The Pompidou Centre (Centre Georges Pompidou) [1]. It's technically not a single museum, but several, including the largest museum for modern art in Europe (Musée National d'Art Moderne) and IRCAM, which is about music and acoustic research.

If you're into modern art and/or architecture, it's a must-see. The center itself is a beautiful mess of industrial design, and they have everything ranging from modern paintings to furniture to contemporary sculptures to technological inventions.

Two of the current exhibitions are an installation by Ryoji Ikeda [2], which is one of the most superb audiovisual pieces I've seen (you sit in a completely dark room and watch a huge projection) and Coder Le Monde [3], a history of generative art (digital 2D and 3D, as well as physical), computer graphics and visualization. Both are fantastic.

The nearby Palais de Tokyo is also fun, as is the Museum of Modern Art, which is next door to it.

Everyone mentions the Louvre, but it is incredibly crowded and touristy, and the 90% of the paintings are portraits of 19th century nobility. The gardens surrounding the Louvre are much enjoyable than the inside, in my (possibly unpopular) opinion.

[1] https://www.centrepompidou.fr/en

[2] https://www.centrepompidou.fr/cpv/agenda/event.action?param....

[3] https://www.centrepompidou.fr/cpv/agenda/event.action?param....

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