This particular recurrent discussion of who did what first grows more tedious with the years.
Colossus was, if you like, a computer, although not really a stored-program one; so the resolution of this not very interesting question turns on what is meant by the word 'computer', about which full agreement is impossible. A not at all frivolous case can also be made for Babbage or Leibniz as the inventor of the computer. Yet other precursors have been proposed. As Whitehead observed, "Everything has been said before by someone who did not discover it". What is more important is that two seminal figures, Alan Turing and John von Neumann, were at hand at a crucial time. The modern computer grew out of their work. They have both achieved scientific immortality. I am grateful that they lived (and saddened by their premature deaths). I am not much interested in trying to decide which of them was the 'first', whatever exactly that may mean. John Gilmore, Ashland, MA 01721 - USA ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
