[Air-l] a question

[elijah wright]

> According to Ada, the Analytical Engine
>
> "might act upon other things besides number, were objects found whose
> mutual fundamental relations could be expressed by those of the abstract
> science of operations, and which should be also susceptible of
> adaptations to the action of the operating notation and mechanism of the
> engine."
>
> It seems to be only fair to atribute to Ada Lovelace the primacy in
> regard to the acknowledgment of the media-universal nature of computers.

I am not really sure that I buy into this - at least partially because it
seems to 'flatten' distinctions between 'media' (as in news, television,
newspaper, auditory media) and 'medium'(s) [many of which may not be
'media' in any sense at all] upon which such an engine might possibly
operate.  I think this is pretty confusing.

Gotta love air-l, home of the freewheeling mental romp...

--elijah


> I'd say it was Ada Lovelace who wrote eloquently about the ways in which
> digital code could simulate all kinds of media
> This is discussed at some length
> in Plant's Zeros and Ones