On 2/27/22 2:55 AM, Robin Vowels wrote:
On Sunday, February 27, 2022 at 5:24:01 PM UTC+11, 25.BX943 wrote:
On 2/25/22 11:42 AM, mockturtle wrote:
Now also a GPU is named after Ada Lovelace
https://www.pcgamer.com/nvidias-next-generation-ada-lovelace-gpus-are-rumored-to-consume-scary-amounts-of-power/
That's nice ... but does it have anything to do with
her thoughts on computing machines ? :-)
Babbage knew how to build a computer - but he was fixated
on using them to create math tables for navigation and such.
.
That's how it started, but he progressed to develop
an "analytical engine" -- a computer, for which Ada Lovelace
wrote programs.
Timeline ... she came in as he was trying to raise money
for the 'analytical engine'. I think he'd sold exactly two
of his 'difference engines' (to the Royal Navy I think)
but nobody else was interested. Those were VERY complicated
devices in and of themselves, very expensive to make.
Babbage dropped in on Ada's hubby with a sales pitch. She
sat in on his overly-tekkie description of the AE. The next
morning she'd written a small program for the hypothetical
device (it had one small bug). Her interest piqued, she
struck up a closer association with Babbage (as pen-pals
and 'biz partners' apparently, nothing naughtier was ever
mentioned). She wrote up what amounted to sales ads for
the thing - which tended to be half her own expositions
on the subject.
However Babbage never really did seem to see the wider
possibilities of his AE. He still saw the use as doing
practical math - just with more flexibility than the
old DE. Ada was the only one who seemed to grasp the
more exotic implication - anything that *could* be
represented as numbers could be manipulated/analyzed/
transformed by such a machine.
So, while Babbage is the god of computers, Lovelace is
the goddess of modern "computing". Babbage's vision was
severely limited by the hardware of the era - gears and
cogs and cams. Lovelace's vision was not dependent on
the hardware, you can easily code her programming examples
into Python or Pascal, 'C' ... or Ada ... and they work.
Alas her life was rather short - some disease, maybe cancer -
and she spent her last couple of years totally doped-up and
unable to pursue her ideas.
In any case, they both had it right - but Babbage was the
one thwarted by the tech. A remarkable set of people, just
100 years too early. The proto Woz and Jobs ???
Oh, and let's not forget that Babbage got his idea for the AE
from the Jacquard loom when he visited Jacquard's factory -
another inspired bit of tech. And yes Jacquard had his own
'systems programmer' in the back room, the only guy who knew
how the control cards should be punched - the machine was
probably HIS idea, but he gets no credit and nobody even
seems sure of his name ... the boss slapped HIS name on it
and that's all anyone remembers (sound familiar ? :-)
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)