this post was submitted on 29 Oct 2023
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Turing and Church did a lot of the heavy lifting for the theoretical side and contributed heavily to automating the decoding of the enigma encryption, but the most common modern computer architecture was decided in a conference in New York. The person that is credited with designing the architecture is named John Von Neumann.
Before them, it was Babbage, an Englishman. How did Germany contribute to computers? That's not to say that I don't think Germany can't handle designing this software, they definitely can. But they didn't have a very big hand in the history of computers
I'm not sure, but I think they were making a joke. Germany created the Enigma machine. Turing et al did some seminal work as a result of the need to quickly decrypt Enigma messages. Ergo, we wouldn't have computers without the Germans.
Zuse built the arguably first electronically programmable computer or something like that.
I've three bridges to sell to you
It depends on your definition of "computer".
There was a period of very rapid development, largely government funded efforts as both sides of the war saw computers as critical strategically, and a bunch projects went from "hey do you think this might work?" to "here's an unlimited budget, go make it work."
They were all heavily influenced by each other (and spying on each other, and lying about the extent of their intelligence gathering capabilities) and computers were progressively developed in paralel.
Who did it "first" depends on where you draw the line in the sand and say "yes, this is a computer". Even the "turing" test doesn't work as a clear definition, because the first computers that could pass the that test were barely able to pass in practice.
Also, I think you could make a compelling argument that none of those projects would've received all that funding (and there definitely would've been less espionage) unless a war was going on. If the war hadn't happened, computers would've taken much longer to be invented.
I don't think you use the term Turing test properly. Do you mean Turing complete?
What lol
I wouldn't go as far as to say that without germans we wouldn't have computers today. What he is probably referencing is the Zuse Z3, which can be considered one of the first computers.
The main argument against it being the first is that it's a mechanical design rather than electronic and that turing completeness was only achieved on it much later using a trick which the designer had not intended. Interestingly, ENIAC, which is considered the first computer by many, uses a decimal design. The Z3 on the other hand was already using binary.
I took this info from the german wikipedia article on the Z3. I'm not sure if the english article goes into similar detail on those points.
If you're thinking of the stored program concept it wasn't Von Neumann, but it's a common misconception. Von Neumann himself credited Turing for it. Independently, the concept was described in a patent application by Konrad Zuse as early as 1936.
Zuse is widely considered the inventor of the modern computer because of his Z3 model. It never achieved recognition during the war she went largely unnoticed, not even being used by the government in secrecy like the British Colossus.
For the longest time the British early computers went unknown too during the secrecy, we only credit them today because they were eventually declassified.
American computers enjoyed the largest recognition during the '40s. The ENIAC is probably the most widely known and had a major contribution to the world of computing not only because it proved the concept of a general purpose computer, but also because its creators held the Moore School Lectures which taught the ENIAC design principles.
Another very important computer was the ABC, but not for its design (it wasn't Turing complete) but for an indirect reason: its patent on the design of a computer was challenged and invalidated in the landmark case Honeywell v Sperry Rand which resulted in the modern electronic computer entering public domain, which was an enormous boost for the industry.
Konrad Zuse actually invented the computer at the same time as Turing, and in complete intellectual isolation from Turing.
Was it in base-10 rather than binary?
It actually was in base-1.5 (secret nazi tech made this possible)