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A comment on What Did Ada Lovelace's Program Actually Do? (2018). Parent comment

Re:What Did Ada Lovelace's Program Actually Do? (2018) by retrac on Monday December 16, 2024 @03:56PM (#42435334)
Is an early 20th century mechanical desk calculator a computer? There is no consensus on definition but for me, a computer follows a program. Maybe even only one fixed program. But a program. If there is no stepping through a program it is not a computer.

Does the iterative method used by the difference engine constitute a program?

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Re:What Did Ada Lovelace's Program Actually Do? (2018) by lazide on Tuesday December 17, 2024 @03:56AM (#42439629)
The term ‘computer’ originates from humans trained (and paid!) to explicitly do lots of math, so it seems to be.
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