8 Jan
2018
8 Jan
'18
7:07 a.m.
We lost a co-inventor of ENIAC, John Mauchly, on this day (that's 8th
January like my headers say) in 1980. ENIAC is claimed to be the "first
general purpose electronic digital computer", but I guess it comes down to
a matter of definition[*], as every culture likes to be the "first" (just
ask the Penguins, for example); for "computer" you could go all the way
back to the Mk-I Antikythera (Hellenic variation, from about the 100BC
production run)...
[*]
Analogue/digital/hybrid
Mechanical/electrical/electronic/hybrid
General/special
Wired/programmable/Turing
Prototype/production
Harvard/Neumann/quantum
Etc...
--
Dave Horsfall DTM (VK2KFU) "Those who don't understand security will
suffer."