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To: LibWhacker

They’ve been chattering about quantum computing for as long as I’ve been in the business. And I got started in the days when computers were steam powered.


3 posted on 11/17/2015 6:59:19 PM PST by IronJack
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To: IronJack
They’ve been chattering about quantum computing for as long as I’ve been in the business. And I got started in the days when computers were steam powered.

Did you meet Ada Lovelace (world's first computer programmer, 1815-1852)? There's some old folks on FR!

Anyway, in my early days of machine programming I got to handle some computer cores. The real stuff, toroid donut cores with wires going through them (and why memory cores are called that). A couple wires carrying current would be sensed by a sensor wire to indicate a zero (0) or a one (1) state, basis of binary computing. The zero-state wasn't actually zero, just a voltage level different than a one-state. I often pondered the difficulty of different states other than zero or one by varying the voltage, and how difficult it would be to program quantum computing other than binary. Probably would lead to a lot of programmers committing suicide. Anyway, as toroid cores gave way to binary storage using other means, I stopped pondering quantum computing.

11 posted on 11/17/2015 8:28:31 PM PST by roadcat
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