What did Ada Lovelace's program actually do? (2018)
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What did Ada Lovelace's program actually do? (2018)
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Re: What did Ada Lovelace's program actually do? (2018)
#2What I think is the coolest part is her actual work in the "notes" she attached to the translation.
See: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cf/Diagram_...
and: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Note_G
The article also references this python translation of her work:
Re: What did Ada Lovelace's program actually do? (2018)
#3> The Difference Engine was not a computer, because all it did was add and subtract.
The definition of computer is pretty grey for the pre-digital era, and it wasn't turing complete, but is it actually controversial whether it was a computer?
Re: What did Ada Lovelace's program actually do? (2018)
#4> The Difference Engine was not a computer, because all it did was add and subtract. The definition of computer is pretty grey for the pre-digital era, and it wasn't turing complete, but is it actually controversial whether it was a computer?
Difference Engine basically implemented one algorithm in hardware, while Analytical Engine was supposed to run a program. I believe that could make the latter one a computer.
Re: What did Ada Lovelace's program actually do? (2018)
#5> The Difference Engine was not a computer, because all it did was add and subtract. The definition of computer is pretty grey for the pre-digital era, and it wasn't turing complete, but is it actually controversial whether it was a computer?
Probably not, it's stated in the TFA, the controversy is because Lovelace was a woman and some people think propping her up is basically a DEI retcon in history, the rest of us don't care. But I don't think it's anything whatsoever to do with actual computers
Re: What did Ada Lovelace's program actually do? (2018)
#6> The Difference Engine was not a computer, because all it did was add and subtract. The definition of computer is pretty grey for the pre-digital era, and it wasn't turing complete, but is it actually controversial whether it was a computer?
Probably not, it's stated in the TFA, the controversy is because Lovelace was a woman and some people think propping her up is basically a DEI retcon in history, the rest of us don't care. But I don't think it's anything whatsoever to do with actual computers
That's so funny...
Mathematicians for 150 years: Ada Lovelace is kind of on top of it.
Random from 2024: probably just a diversity footnote.
Re: What did Ada Lovelace's program actually do? (2018)
#7> In her “diagram of development,” Lovelace gives the fourth operation as v5 / v4. But the correct ordering here is v4 / v5. This may well have been a typesetting error and not an error in the program that Lovelace devised. All the same, this must be the oldest bug in computing. I marveled that, for ten minutes or so, unknowingly, I had wrestled with this first ever bug.
The real mark of a non-trivial program is that it doesn't work on the first try.
It's incredible how Babbage, frustrated that the mass production precision machining technology necessary to make his simple engine work didn't exist yet, decides that the best way forward is to design a new system an order of magnitude more complex and then go to Italy to find more advanced manufacturing somehow.
Re: What did Ada Lovelace's program actually do? (2018)
#8> The Difference Engine was not a computer, because all it did was add and subtract. The definition of computer is pretty grey for the pre-digital era, and it wasn't turing complete, but is it actually controversial whether it was a computer?
Difference Engine basically implemented one algorithm in hardware, while Analytical Engine was supposed to run a program. I believe that could make the latter one a computer.
The first stored program computer is a remarkable achievement, even if they didn't actually build it.
Re: What did Ada Lovelace's program actually do? (2018)
#9> In fact, aside from the profusion of variables with unhelpful names, the C translation of Lovelace’s program doesn’t look that alien at all.
Clearly the author never met my coworkers.
Re: What did Ada Lovelace's program actually do? (2018)
#10[deleted]