• some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org
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    13 hours ago

    Hooray for the Lady who might have written the first algorithm! She needs more attention.

    Other: Charles Babbage (sp?) and the Analytic Engine: perhaps our first real computer. Imagine a steampunk world where all our devices were powered by huge mechanical chunks and chonks.

    I saw a video of a constructed Analytical Engine (they couldn’t manufacture the parts to the specs required in Babbage’s time) donated to a Computer History museum by an early Microsoft exec. Didn’t find it on a quick search, but it’s a huge thing driven by a physical crank.

    • call_me_xale@lemmy.zip
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      3 hours ago

      This woman wrote computer programs while computers we’re still almost purely theoretical. Fucking mind-blowing.

      • some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org
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        3 hours ago

        I can’t imagine a more advanced mind. I mean, maybe Einstein, but we have proof of her discoveries and they’re not at all abstract in the contemporary world! (I mean, they kinda are, but you get what I mean.)