From: John Conover <john@email.johncon.com>
Subject: forwarded message from root@email.johncon.com
Date: Sun, 26 Jan 1997 00:38:25 -0800
And, in case you are curious, "on this day" the EDVAC was demonstrated
in 1952, (eg., 45 years ago.) And what is the significance of that? It
was the first implementation of the "Von Neumann architecture," AKA
RAM, (Random Access Machine-and you thought it was a memory lingo,)
machine, of which, modern computers are descendents, (like the PC,
Mac, or Cray Y/MP, for that matter.)
John
BTW, the EDVAC had an interesting patent issue. Correct me if I am
wrong, Ray, but Von Neumann sketched the architecture in the mid 40's,
and presented it at a conference. Others, who were to spin off and
start the Remington Rand Corporation, attempted to patent their
implementation and the patent was refused since it had been previously
disclosed-a subject that was bitterly contested among personalities
and ended up in litigation. (So the story goes, if I remember
correctly. Ditto, the machine was actually implemented as part of the
weather forecasting endeavors of Von Neumann, and development was
funded, at least in part, by the weather service, which, after the
weather was shown to be a chaotic system, by Mandelbrot, et al, turned
out to be an ill founded project. The machine was later, in the
mid-late 50's, to achieve some distinction for doing theoretical
calculations in the weapons establishment. It was a direct descendent
of the EINEAC, the world's first programmable computer, actually an
implementation of Babbage's concepts from the 1830's-yes the
1800's-which was formalized by Turing in 1938. It was the first
machine that demonstrated the difference between calculation and
computation, which is what Turing's paper was all about. As nearly as
I can remember, it served well, being dismantled in the early 1960's.)
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From: root <root@email.johncon.com>
To: john@email.johncon.com
Subject: Reminders for Sunday, January 26, 1997
Date: Sun, 26 Jan 1997 00:06:22 -0800
Reminders for Sunday, 26th January, 1997 (today):
Sunrise 07:16, Sunset 17:24, Moon 0.84 (Decreasing)
Reminders for Thursday, 30th January, 1997:
Thursday 7pm, Electyric Editor, Business Plan review
________________________ On This Day, Jan 26 ... ________________________
1st settlement established by the English in Australia. (1788)
Angela Davis, is born (1944)
Australia Day; observed on nearest Monday (Australia)
Captain Wells discovers the largest diamond in the world, at the premier Mines in Pretoria, South Africa (1905)
Douglas MacArthur, he did return (1880)
EDVAC demonstrated (1952)
EDVAC demonstrated, 1952
First television show (1926)
Hindi made the official language of India (1965)
Hong Kong proclaimed a British sovereign territory (1841)
India becomes a republic. (1950)
Italian forces help General Franco and his rebel forces take Barcelona (1939)
Jules Feiffer, satiric cartoonist, is born (1929)
Michigan becomes the 26th state (1837)
Paul Newman, actor, is born in Cleveland, Ohio (1925)
Republic Day (India)
Republic Day in India
Sydney Aust. settled, 1778
Sydney Australia settled (1778)
The song "We are the World" is recorded as a benefit to starving Africans (1985)
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John Conover, john@email.johncon.com, http://www.johncon.com/