[SIGCIS-Members] My column on Turing and the Invention of the Computer

Len Shustek lshustek at computerhistory.org
Fri Jan 17 17:31:59 PST 2014


At 12:47 PM 1/17/2014, Thomas Haigh wrote:
> > ...You may be interested in my newly published Communications of 
> the ACM Column "Actually, Turing Did Not Invent the Computer."
> > ... I think also that the public really has room in its 
> collective memory for just one famous person per technology, 
> usually its inventor. ...



There is indeed a public craving for lone heroic inventors. As an 
amateur historian I enjoy giving a talk whose title will make the 
professional historians here cringe: "Who Invented The Computer, and 
Why Don't You Know?". (The audience is often senior citizens. This is 
sometimes called the "rubber chicken circuit"; see wiki/Rubber_chicken.)

You will be relieved to know that I don't answer the question. I talk 
about Babbage, Zuse, Turing, Atanasoff/Berry, Aiken, Eckert/Mauchly, 
William/Kilburn, Von Neumann, and Wilkes. All this in 50 minutes! I 
do confess to the audience that if I were subjected to torture and 
required to answer the question, I would unapologetically name 
Babbage as the first inventor of a computer that was never built.

An excellent article, Tom, and a fun read.

-- Len

Dr. Leonard Shustek
Chairman, Computer History Museum
www.computerhistory.org






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