Rares Aioanei said the following on 05/22/2010 01:54 PM:
On 05/22/2010 08:29 PM, Anton Aylward wrote:
Hmm, centuries of computing, huh? :)
Yes. Computing existed long before Babbage, and mechanical calculators pre-dated him as well. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_computing There's a good case to be made that even programmable machines are over a thousand years old: http://www.historyofscience.com/G2I/timeline/index.php?id=699 See also http://www.historyofscience.com/G2I/timeline/index.php?category=Accounting+%... Astronomy (and astrology) has always been a driver for better computational algorithms. Think "Stonehenge": an astronomical calculator. Hard to modify the algorithm though. The importance of better algorithms and better "inner loops" is that before Babbage even the counting boards, abacuses, and slide rules needed human operators. They were the limiting factor. This is why issues such as "convergence theory" became important. -- "The number of UNIX installations has grown to 10, with more expected..." - Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson, June 1972 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org