revcomp
2yr ago
For Ada to be the first programmer, Charles Babbage must have designed the first programmable computer without ever coming up with any test programs for it.
He decided what instructions you'd need, and that you'd need multiple ones, then never thought about combining 2 or more together to do anything, ever.
Then lucky for him, a programmer appears!
revcomp
2yr ago
Exactly. If there are adults running the show they'll have planned where to put the explosives, have aircraft standing by and know the schools key TSMC employees kids will go to.
revcomp
2yr ago
Yes 100% woukd be a wealth transfer. I think the current system has gone the other way, young people have to work many more years to transfer wealth to the old.
So.. we should aim to even it out a bit. Let's haggle on the percent and timelines
You designed your cpu for a class, long after people had come up with the idea of a programmable computer, and determining what instructions are needed.
Every instruction that needs to be put in hardware adds complexity, so knowing that some operation can be achieved by another one is very valuable. Babbage's machine had memory, if statements and loops - quite an achievement to know these are needed to write algorithms without writing any.
Making a device programmable, rather than hardcoded is an amazing mental leap and also a massive jump in complexity. One that I believe you would only make if you had at least 2 programs you wanted to run
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