Thank You, Turing!

Dear Friends,


If the sun rises tomorrow, it will herald what would have been the 100th birthday of Alan Turing. He was a hero and an enigma, a gift to humanity who gave us all of his own gifts, but was scorned and persecuted by the men to whom he gave those treasures in his own brief time. His best efforts were bequeathed to the future.

He saved millions of lives and helped end the most horrible war that our species has ever waged. I could not now be touching so many folks' thoughts nor their hearts with the flicks on the keys of this little computer that has at its basis an invention of his mind. For billions of us, without Turing, we would never know each other through this seemingly magical medium of expanded mind.

Yes, this fellow had a fine mind, strange but a very generous one. I think I'll go buy an apple tomorrow, take one bite out of it and put a little candle by the core, wishing the too long gone hero a happy birthday.


Hic Finis Est,


SS

Babbage's Difference Engine…

Folks,


Charles Babbage (1791-1871) had ideas that were far ahead of his time. Had his Analytical Engine come to fruition in his lifetime it is entirely possible that computer science would have taken hold in the 1880s. He even saw its output as a printer. Recently, however, work has begun to digitize and open source his plans for the first computer, albeit a mechanical beast, of the industrial age.

The Babbage Difference Engine

The Greeks of 2,000 years ago, however, had already come up with the the Antikythera Mechanism, an ancient mechanical computer^[1][2] designed to calculate astronomical positions.

Antikythera Mechanism

We are clever folks, but apparently too apt to forget, perhaps.


Hic Finis Est,


S