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How the World's First Computer Was Rescued from the Scrap Heap (2014)

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Re: How the World's First Computer Was Rescued from the Scrap Heap (2014)

#41

Post by sep_field »

ncmncm wrote: post #26
M2Ys4U wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Well, Britain decided to hide everything behind the Official Secrets Act, which workers proudly maintained. Fun fact: GCHQ still refuses to talk about some of the earliest computing work on Colossus and enigma decryption. I was quite surprised to hear this when I was on a tour of The National Museum of Computing at Bletchley Park[0]. I hope that if/when they do decide to declassify that information that they'll han…

GCHQ are embarrassed because they lost / destroyed it. "Refusing" is less embarrassing than "ooopsie!".

do you have a source for this? I imagine you are right, but is there an interesting story about it you've seen?

Re: How the World's First Computer Was Rescued from the Scrap Heap (2014)

#42

Post by retrac »

usrusr wrote: post #11
ff10 wrote: post #3

Obligatory comment that the Z3 was the world's first digital computer. Not sure what the "real" refers to in the headline, but it turns out that the Z3 was indeed Turing complete. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z3_(computer)

Who knows, perhaps if the minds behind Paperclip had been a little more data-minded: * today, Z3 might be considered "first real" and * today, we might be stuck writing code in a fossilized language lovingly called Plankalkül 58 by its inventors that had so much inertia back then that it stifled all further development in the 1960ies, with the result that all of our 2021 computing would be about as fresh as the 2021…

> we might be stuck writing code in a fossilized language lovingly called Plankalkül 58 by its inventors

Substitute ALGOL 58 and that's pretty much what happened. You can't trust those Germans with language design!

Re: How the World's First Computer Was Rescued from the Scrap Heap (2014)

#44

Post by fsagx »

M2Ys4U wrote: post #4

In addition to ENIAC being built after the German Z1 (1938) and Z3 (1941), as others here have stated, it was also built after the UK's Colossus[0] (1943). If we're talking "first real computer", though, and depending on your definition of "real", the Manchester Baby[1] (1948) was the first stored-program computer. The Colossus and ENIAC machines all needed to be re-wired to change what computations they could make a…

In addition to ENIAC being built after the German Z1 (1938) and Z3 (1941), as others here have stated, it was also built after the UK's Colossus

Don't forget the ABC computer (1937-1942) which also pre-dates ENIAC

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atanasoff%E2%80%93Berry_comput...

Re: How the World's First Computer Was Rescued from the Scrap Heap (2014)

#45

Post by twic »

kleiba wrote: post #39
twic wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AIUI, the Z3 has no conditional branches. Without those, it's not much like a computer as we understand it. Rather, i think the Z3 is an "automatic calculator" - it can carry out a fixed sequence of operations, but it can't do arbitrary computation. In that respect, it is like the Atanasoff–Berry computer and the Harvard Mark I. The prehistory of computing has a bunch of really interesting machines like this (and Col…

it can carry out a fixed sequence of operations, but it can't do arbitrary computation This is incorrect. The Z3 is Turing-complete, as has been shown by Raúl Rojas in 1998 [1]. It requires some hacking though. [1] https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/707574

That is a cool paper (and there is an unpaywalled PDF [1]), but what that it shows is not that the Z3 is Turing complete, but that a larger machine comprising a Z3 and a piece of sticky tape is Turing complete. The Z3 as built and used was not Turing complete.

Moreover, the technique in the paper is purely a stunt. You couldn't do practical branching computation that way. It is definitely cool, but it doesn't change the fact that the Z3 was a calculator, not a computer.

[1] http://www.inf.fu-berlin.de/inst/ag-ki/rojas_home/documents/...

Re: How the World's First Computer Was Rescued from the Scrap Heap (2014)

#46

Post by twic »

ncmncm wrote: post #25
twic wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AIUI, the Z3 has no conditional branches. Without those, it's not much like a computer as we understand it. Rather, i think the Z3 is an "automatic calculator" - it can carry out a fixed sequence of operations, but it can't do arbitrary computation. In that respect, it is like the Atanasoff–Berry computer and the Harvard Mark I. The prehistory of computing has a bunch of really interesting machines like this (and Col…

3 is not necessary. OSes and linkers are not necessary. We did without for many years. The program should be in some kind of more-or-less addressable memory, to support conditional branching. That's all.

No you didn't. You can't even write a bootloader without 3. All practical computers have always had 3.

Re: How the World's First Computer Was Rescued from the Scrap Heap (2014)

#48

Post by garaetjjte »

chrisseaton wrote: post #19
hoseja wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn't know HN has shadowbanning.

You have to have a certain level of karma to be able to see shadow-banned people. Otherwise... yeah not knowing about it is kind of the point, isn't it?

No, you just need to enable showdead in profile settings. Certain karma amount is required for vouching permissions.

Re: How the World's First Computer Was Rescued from the Scrap Heap (2014)

#49

Post by jandrese »

twic wrote: post #12
eMGm4D0zgUAVXc7 wrote: post #2

The ENIAC was not the world's first computer. Konrad Zuse's Z1 was first: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z1_(computer) Even if you want it to be electrical, not mechanical, then Zuse's Z3 was first: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z3_(computer)

AIUI, the Z3 has no conditional branches. Without those, it's not much like a computer as we understand it. Rather, i think the Z3 is an "automatic calculator" - it can carry out a fixed sequence of operations, but it can't do arbitrary computation. In that respect, it is like the Atanasoff–Berry computer and the Harvard Mark I. The prehistory of computing has a bunch of really interesting machines like this (and Col…

Doesn't "Turing Complete" require 1 and 3 already?

Re: How the World's First Computer Was Rescued from the Scrap Heap (2014)

#50

Post by booky2 »

M2Ys4U wrote: post #4

In addition to ENIAC being built after the German Z1 (1938) and Z3 (1941), as others here have stated, it was also built after the UK's Colossus[0] (1943). If we're talking "first real computer", though, and depending on your definition of "real", the Manchester Baby[1] (1948) was the first stored-program computer. The Colossus and ENIAC machines all needed to be re-wired to change what computations they could make a…

So in this, does the definition of "World" include both West coast and East coast? What about Hawaii and Alaska?
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