Subject: RE: The "birth-year" of computational chemistry?

From: Tom Hawkins <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2000 17:05:35 -0000

David E. Bernholdt [[email-masked]] said:

>I don't want to enter this fray except to say that one must be careful
>to distinguish betweeen (a) analog and digital computers, and (b)
>purpose-specific and general programmable computers.  Many early
>computers were hardwired for specific tasks. 

Manchester celebrated the 50th anniversary of the first digital stored
program computer (the 'Baby') in 1998:

http://www.computer50.org/

Among the celebrations was a competition to write a program for the first
machine - see details on http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/prog98/ where John Sargeant
(ex- competition coordinator) says:

"In my view, "stored-program computer" (i.e. "computer-with-software") is a
tautology, given the modern usage of the word "computer". It's difficult to
imagine running a competition like this for any of the "computers" which
existed before the Baby. And we've seen that the store was (just) big enough
to make interesting programs possible. So if anybody else claims to have The
World's First Computer, ask them for details of their programming
competition. "

Dr Tom Hawkins             Osmetech plc
Sensor Technologist        Electra House, Electra Way, Crewe CW1 6WZ
[email-masked]   Tel +44(0)1270 216444 Fax +44(0)1270 216030