How many of you like HP41C calculators?

From: William R. Buckley <wrb_at_wrbuckley.com>
Date: Wed Nov 19 22:50:13 2003

Sellam:

> > Moreover, there is the _analog computer_ with programming very
> > similar to the unit record equipment, and such machines have always
> > been known as computers.
>
> Hardly. That's like saying French and Spanish are the same language
> because they share a common character set. They are computers in a wholly
> different sense of the word and have nothing at all to do with a Turing
> Machine, and thereby this discussion has suddenly drifted off into bizarre
> and meaningless abstracts.

Both systems, analog computers and unit record equipment use plug boards
for programming. It may even be that the plug board as a physical item does
not exist, in which case the analog computer is programmed by a means of
wires hanging all about. For both cases, the mechanism of programming is
identical. The point is the means of programming.

> > The important point for computation is closure, and Turing is the
> > ideal model. It is not efficient, it is not pretty but, all
> systems that
> > exhibit computational closure are Turing machine equivalents, and
> > this is the foundation of computer science.
>
> Including analog computers and unit record equipment?

Yes, from a mathematical point of view, computational closure is there,
in stored program computers, analog computers, and the processes of
using unit record equipment.

William R. Buckley
Received on Wed Nov 19 2003 - 22:50:13 GMT