Posted on 10/08/2008 7:53:33 PM PDT by mimi from mi
When I heard Barack Hussein Obama mention last night that the government invented computers, I immediately thought it was invented by kids (not Al Gore) working in a garage. Guess I was wrong as today I discovered the following on another blog:
Was this a McCain moment by obama?
Quick takeaway from the 2nd presidential debate - Obama claimed specifically that U.S. government invented the computer, and Obama was very wrong. The computer was developed over a long period of time, and by most historical accounts trace back to Europe with British and German inventors in the late 19th and early 20th century for the conceptual idea of a computer. For a functioning machine, most historical accounts point to a Iowa State University professor and his graduate student:
“I have always taken the position that there is enough credit for everyone in the invention and development of the electronic computer” - John Atanasoff to reporters.
Professor John Atanasoff and graduate student Clifford Berry built the world’s first electronic-digital computer at Iowa State University between 1939 and 1942. The Atanasoff-Berry Computer represented several innovations in computing, including a binary system of arithmetic, parallel processing, regenerative memory, and a separation of memory and computing functions.
http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2008/10/08/a-privilege-to-join-the-debate/
How far we have come....
/johnny
Difference Engine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Difference_engine
I'm not sure that Babbage ever actually built the "Difference engine". He is famous for producing the plans for it.
for such an intelligent person,
obamao’s ‘tarded.
"It's easier to ask forgiveness than it is to get permission"
"A ship in a harbor is safe, but that is not what a ship is built for."
"I believe in having an open mind, but not so open that your brains fall out."
Yeah, I think you’re correct, actually. A lot of sources say that ENIAC was the first, but Colossus used essentially similar technology and went before ENIAC.
Both were WWII devices used by their respective governments for military purposes. Obama is a bundle of contradictions: “Government is great; they invented the first computer (well, make that the second electronic digital software-programmable computer), and they used it for military purposes (which I won’t fund).” Brilliant.
/johnny
Must be true if a Yalie gives Harvard credit.
Gracie Hopper! Hand salute! BTT.
This I never knew:
USS Hopper (DDG-70), an Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer, is the first (and to date only) ship of the United States Navy to be named for the pioneering computer scientist, Rear Admiral “Amazing Grace” Hopper.
Not so. The Atanasoff-Berry Computer predated the ENIAC as the first general purpose digital electronic computer. This was determined in court. Simply, prior to creation of the ENIAC, its designer conferred with Professor Atanasoff and basically used the revealed principles to develop the ENIAC.
But who cares?
We all should. It is because of the Atanasoff-Berry Computer (ABC), that we have personal computers today.
The ENIAC was developed under an umbrella of government secrecy. Its patents were locked up tighter than Fort Knox so that We The People had no access to them. Through decades of court cases it was definitively proven that the ABC was existing art prior to the ENIAC. And the ABC had no patents (Iowa State College neglected to file for them). So the ENIAC patents were busted wide open.
Once those patents were broken, the legal obstacles were cleared to develop and market personal computers.
And several steps later, we have Freepers ;-)
Until Obama's political purges begin.
No. But she did tell everyone far and wide where the term originated, because it was Navy.
Basically an early Navy electronic computer suffered an outage. When the Navy technician investigated he found a bug smashed in a relay. Being a typically resourceful sailor, he carefully peeled the bug off the relay face and taped it into the log book noting cause of failure; "bug in system". That log entry rapidly became an inside joke.
Admiral Hopper was one of those with original knowledge of the joke. And she delighted in explaining the term's origin so it would never be lost.
You really think Big Ears Barry knows any real history?
He said PC at one point didn’t he?
The PC Wasn’t invented by the government.
If he was talking about computers, well that neither.
The government took private research,upsized it, and converted it to the task of cracking German enigma code in wwii.
Concur!
Then there was the Antikythera mechanism discovered in a shipwreck off Greece, dating to around 150~100BC. The first known mechanical computer, used for astronomical observations.
So I guess he was the Intel of his time!
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