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A comment on Pidgin – A Universal Chat Client. Parent comment

Re:Pidgin – A Universal Chat Client by Elv13 on Friday January 22, 2021 @03:59PM (#25876289)
On the contrary, the analogy is very good. The steam engine represents power. Power can be used for a limitless number of applications. The steam engine is the CPU. You input energy (pressure/electricity) and extract work (mechanical/computational).
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Re:Pidgin – A Universal Chat Client by ForHackernews on Saturday January 23, 2021 @11:30AM (#25883509)
I don't think it's the same. A steam engine is more like a wagon or a truck. The steam engine can power many things; a truck can haul many different sorts of goods, but they're still fundamentally single-purpose. The engine powers, the wagon hauls.

I guess you could say a computer computes, but that's using an overly broad term to deliberately elide the point.

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