{"id":60057,"date":"2024-04-01T08:04:36","date_gmt":"2024-04-01T12:04:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pappp.net\/?guid=4a7d26573bf1310d7bc987b4c2a674eb"},"modified":"2024-04-01T08:04:36","modified_gmt":"2024-04-01T12:04:36","slug":"there-were-no-ancient-computers-and-its-fine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pappp.net\/?p=60057","title":{"rendered":"There were no ancient computers and it&#8217;s fine"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"syndicated-attribution\">Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/lcamtuf.substack.com\/p\/there-were-no-ancient-computers-and\">Hacker News<\/a><\/p>\n<div style=\"background-color : #fff7d5;\n\t\t\tborder-width : 1px; padding : 5px; border-style : dashed; border-color : #e7d796;margin-bottom : 1em; color : #9a8c59;\">Article note: Ehhh, They're hammering the \"Programmable\/Stored Program\" requirement real hard.  There were lots of useful devices for performing calculations, switching signals, data acquisition, and control prior to full-bore computers (arithmetic aids, telephone switches, etc.), and many of them were necessary preconditions for the stored-program computer. There were also very clearly people who understood the potential of computing machines before they were realizable, which were necessary to their development.\n\nI do agree that Babbage and Lovelace get over-emphasized because they are _compelling characters_ rather than because of their centrality. (And I have a pet peeve that the important thing from Lovelace is that she was the first person to write down that you could use a computing machine for something-not-arithmetic, the claims about programming are more disputable and less interesting.<\/div><a href=\"https:\/\/news.ycombinator.com\/item?id=39893217\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Comments<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Comments<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/pappp.net\/?p=60057\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[226],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-60057","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pappp.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60057","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pappp.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pappp.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pappp.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pappp.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=60057"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pappp.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60057\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pappp.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=60057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pappp.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=60057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pappp.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=60057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}