> machine. The first true computers were Turing's Bombe built in the early
> 40's to decode Nazi cryptography while the first real computer (Eniac?) was
> designed to calculate artillery shell trajectories for the US military.
> ;P
> larry
What real sense? The ABC was programmable. Turning's Bombes weren't.
Eniac and Mark 1 sort of tied for the first completely electronic
computer. EDVAC was the first machine to store the program
electronically instead of a switchboard-type control.
But I would assert that even the old mechanical punchcard machines were
programmable in the sense that you gave the machine both the numbers and
the operations to be done on them via the punchcards. Even Jacquard
looms were, in a sense, computers, as they were programmed to weave
certian patterns.
So what, in your view, is the "real sense" of programming?
--benD
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