On Mon, Jan 23, 2017 at 12:33 PM, Mouse <mo...@rodents-montreal.org> wrote:
> >> The 7074 was referred to as a "supercomputer". Can any decimal > >> machine really bear that title? > > I suppose it could. I would apply the term to a computer that's the > fastest$ > > Consider Babbage's Analytical Engine. It was decimal and it was, not > so much by intrinsic merit as by lack of competition, the fastest > machine of its day. > > Admittedly, it ended up being little but vapourware until modern times. > But applying "supercomputer" to vapourware machines is a longstanding > tradition (though perhaps not one dating back quite to Babbage's day). > > "The Holy Roman Empire, which was neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire" -- Charles