Re: [OT] Denis Ritchie Education

From	Joe Pfeiffer <pfeiffer@cs.nmsu.edu>
Newsgroups	comp.lang.c
Subject	Re: [OT] Denis Ritchie Education
Date	2016-08-01 15:05 -0600
Organization	A noiseless patient Spider
Message-ID	<1bpopsqjwu.fsf@pfeifferfamily.net> (permalink)
References	(5 earlier) <nnm8cl$3sv$1@jstuckle.eternal-september.org> <1b1t29rupi.fsf@pfeifferfamily.net> <nnnjch$knq$1@jstuckle.eternal-september.org> <1btwf4qx8e.fsf@pfeifferfamily.net> <nnob2v$d6u$1@jstuckle.eternal-september.org>

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Jerry Stuckle <jstucklex@attglobal.net> writes:

> On 8/1/2016 12:18 PM, Joe Pfeiffer wrote:
>> Jerry Stuckle <jstucklex@attglobal.net> writes:
>> 
>>> On 8/1/2016 12:15 AM, Joe Pfeiffer wrote:
>>>> Jerry Stuckle <jstucklex@attglobal.net> writes:
>>>>
>>>>> On 7/31/2016 6:41 PM, Joe Pfeiffer wrote:
>>>>>> Jerry Stuckle <jstucklex@attglobal.net> writes:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On 7/31/2016 3:40 PM, Tim Rentsch wrote:
>>>>>>>> "J. Clarke" <j.clarke.873638@gmail.com> writes:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> In article <nl966b$c57$1@dont-email.me>, nospam@nspam.invalid says...
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>     I was told that DMR' thesis was in "recursive functions".  Now I've
>>>>>>>>>> always assumed maybe being wrong that back then this may have been a
>>>>>>>>>> mathematics recursive functions and he was a Mathematician.  Does anyone know
>>>>>>>>>> if his PhD was mathematics or computer science?
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> Bill
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> There's an interview that addresses this a little bit at
>>>>>>>>> <https://www.princeton.edu/~hos/mike/transcripts/ritchie.htm>.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Remember, though, this was Harvard, where the computer as we know it was
>>>>>>>>> _invented_.  They were _doing_ what we now call "computer science" long
>>>>>>>>> before there was a name for it.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I thought the computer as we know it was invented at the University
>>>>>>>> of Pennsylvania and the group at the Institute for Advanced Studies.
>>>>>>>> There were several precursors, including the Harvard Mark I, but
>>>>>>>> they are not computers as we know them today.  In particular, IIUC,
>>>>>>>> the Harvard Mark I was not Turing complete.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I don't mean to trivialize the contribution of the group at Harvard,
>>>>>>>> which was substantial, but I don't think they invented the computer
>>>>>>>> as we know it today.  John von Neumann, who played a role in both
>>>>>>>> the UPenn and IAS groups, attributed the key concept to Turing's 1936
>>>>>>>> paper.  Note that Turing spent almost two years at Princeton right
>>>>>>>> around that time, next to von Neumann at the IAS.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Actually, it was at Iowa State University -
>>>>>>> http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000984.htm.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The ABC was farther from the computer as we know it than the Harvard
>>>>>> machines.
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> So?  It was close enough that Atanasoff was awarded the patent for
>>>>> computers.
>>>>
>>>> No, he wasn't.  The Eckert-Mauchly patent for computers 
>>>> (https://www.google.com/patents/US3120606) was invalidated
>>>> on the basis of his work among other things, which is a very different
>>>> statement.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Except Atanstoff was also named the inventor of the modern computer.
>>>
>>>>> And it was the precursor to existing computers.  It
>>>>> implemented many of the ideas implemented in today's computers.
>>>>
>>>> Nobody is arguing it wasn't (well, "the" instead of "a" is worthy of
>>>> argument.  And nobody is arguing Babbage's work wasn't a precursor,
>>>> either).
>>>>
>>>> While his work was certainly a valuable step (note that I'm
>>>> not arguing this point at all) it didn't have the crucial step of a
>>>> stored program that's needed to have a computer in anything like we mean
>>>> the term today.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Actually, it did.  Program storage was on paper tape - but it did exist.
>>>  Nothing says it had to be on punched cards, disks, DVDs, etc.  But it
>>> was the first programmable electronic computer.
>> 
>> Since you don't list technologies like core or DRAM, and do list
>> technologies that have never (to the best of my knowledge) been used to
>> implement a stored program computer, are you not familiar with what
>> "stored program" means in this context?
>> 
>
> I didn't think it was necessary to name obvious things.  But I guess for
> some people it is.

And yet you named absurd things -- has DVD ever been used for program
memory?

> Yes, it was programmable, and it did have DRAM - using capacitors for
> storage, just like today's.

That was data storage, not program storage.

>> Presumably you're talking about the Mark I again, since the ABC wasn't
>> programmable.
>> 
>
> Wrong again.  It had several instructions in it's "instruction set".

I suggest you read this:
http://jva.cs.iastate.edu/img/Computing%20machine.pdf

>>> And if you want to claim ENIAC was the first, note that it did not have
>>> many of the features of modern computers such as FPUs, graphics
>>> processors, instruction caches and all kinds of things common to today's
>>> computers.
>> 
>> Of course not; it also wasn't a stored-program computer.
>> 
>> The first two I'm familiar with that meet the requirements were EDVAC
>> and EDSAC.  I've heard the claim that the Z3 in 1941 was first, but I
>> don't know anything about it so can't evaluate that.
>> 
>
> You don't know much about others, either.

Thread

Re: [OT] Denis Ritchie Education "J. Clarke" <j.clarke.873638@gmail.com> - 2016-07-31 05:30 -0400
  Re: [OT] Denis Ritchie Education Tim Rentsch <txr@alumni.caltech.edu> - 2016-07-31 12:40 -0700
    Re: [OT] Denis Ritchie Education Jerry Stuckle <jstucklex@attglobal.net> - 2016-07-31 16:58 -0400
      Re: [OT] Denis Ritchie Education Tim Rentsch <txr@alumni.caltech.edu> - 2016-07-31 15:13 -0700
        Re: [OT] Denis Ritchie Education Jerry Stuckle <jstucklex@attglobal.net> - 2016-07-31 21:21 -0400
          Re: [OT] Denis Ritchie Education Tim Rentsch <txr@alumni.caltech.edu> - 2016-08-01 08:12 -0700
      Re: [OT] Denis Ritchie Education Joe Pfeiffer <pfeiffer@cs.nmsu.edu> - 2016-07-31 16:41 -0600
        Re: [OT] Denis Ritchie Education Jerry Stuckle <jstucklex@attglobal.net> - 2016-07-31 21:24 -0400
          Re: [OT] Denis Ritchie Education Joe Pfeiffer <pfeiffer@cs.nmsu.edu> - 2016-07-31 22:15 -0600
            Re: [OT] Denis Ritchie Education Jerry Stuckle <jstucklex@attglobal.net> - 2016-08-01 09:38 -0400
              Re: [OT] Denis Ritchie Education Joe Pfeiffer <pfeiffer@cs.nmsu.edu> - 2016-08-01 10:18 -0600
                Re: [OT] Denis Ritchie Education Jerry Stuckle <jstucklex@attglobal.net> - 2016-08-01 16:22 -0400
                Re: [OT] Denis Ritchie Education Joe Pfeiffer <pfeiffer@cs.nmsu.edu> - 2016-08-01 15:05 -0600
                Re: [OT] Denis Ritchie Education Jerry Stuckle <jstucklex@attglobal.net> - 2016-08-04 14:01 -0400
                Re: [OT] Denis Ritchie Education Joe Pfeiffer <pfeiffer@cs.nmsu.edu> - 2016-08-04 12:22 -0600
                Re: [OT] Denis Ritchie Education Jerry Stuckle <jstucklex@attglobal.net> - 2016-08-04 16:47 -0400
                Re: [OT] Denis Ritchie Education "Osmium" <r124c4u102@comcast.net> - 2016-08-04 14:22 -0500
                Re: [OT] Denis Ritchie Education Jerry Stuckle <jstucklex@attglobal.net> - 2016-08-04 16:52 -0400
                Re: [OT] Denis Ritchie Education "Osmium" <r124c4u102@comcast.net> - 2016-08-04 16:10 -0500
                Re: [OT] Denis Ritchie Education Jerry Stuckle <jstucklex@attglobal.net> - 2016-08-04 20:30 -0400
    Re: [OT] Denis Ritchie Education luser droog <luser.droog@gmail.com> - 2016-07-31 18:20 -0700
    Re: [OT] Denis Ritchie Education Gareth Owen <gwowen@gmail.com> - 2016-08-01 19:52 +0100
      Re: [OT] Denis Ritchie Education supercat@casperkitty.com - 2016-08-01 15:25 -0700
        Re: [OT] Denis Ritchie Education Joe Pfeiffer <pfeiffer@cs.nmsu.edu> - 2016-08-01 16:38 -0600
          Re: [OT] Denis Ritchie Education supercat@casperkitty.com - 2016-08-01 15:56 -0700
            Re: [OT] Denis Ritchie Education Joe Pfeiffer <pfeiffer@cs.nmsu.edu> - 2016-08-01 17:41 -0600
            Re: [OT] Denis Ritchie Education Gareth Owen <gwowen@gmail.com> - 2016-08-02 06:22 +0100
      Re: [OT] Denis Ritchie Education Tim Rentsch <txr@alumni.caltech.edu> - 2016-08-01 16:48 -0700
        Re: [OT] Denis Ritchie Education Gareth Owen <gwowen@gmail.com> - 2016-08-02 06:27 +0100
          Re: [OT] Denis Ritchie Education Joe Pfeiffer <pfeiffer@cs.nmsu.edu> - 2016-08-02 08:42 -0600
            Re: [OT] Denis Ritchie Education Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2016-08-02 16:28 +0100
              Re: [OT] Denis Ritchie Education Joe Pfeiffer <pfeiffer@cs.nmsu.edu> - 2016-08-02 11:15 -0600
                Re: [OT] Denis Ritchie Education Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2016-08-02 19:37 +0100
                Re: [OT] Denis Ritchie Education supercat@casperkitty.com - 2016-08-02 12:08 -0700
                Re: [OT] Denis Ritchie Education Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2016-08-02 22:40 +0100
          Re: [OT] Denis Ritchie Education Tim Rentsch <txr@alumni.caltech.edu> - 2016-08-03 06:57 -0700
          Re: [OT] Denis Ritchie Education "J. Clarke" <j.clarke.873638@gmail.com> - 2016-10-30 09:06 -0400
            Re: [OT] Denis Ritchie Education supercat@casperkitty.com - 2016-10-30 12:42 -0700
            Re: [OT] Denis Ritchie Education Gareth Owen <gwowen@gmail.com> - 2016-10-31 18:12 +0000

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