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PM_UR_NUMBER_IN_HEX t1_iydee7m wrote

Reply to comment by Hawkeye_x_Hawkeye in TIL The inventor of the television was a 15 year old farm boy who got the idea for scanning an image in rows from the back and forth motion of plowing a field. by chapstickninja

a turing machine is fictional device used for proofs and was created after the computer

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Hawkeye_x_Hawkeye t1_iydeuoi wrote

According to the wiki, it was invented in the 1930s. Its not fictional, it's a theoretical model of a working machine. The concept existed prior to the existence of computers. Would the inventor of image broadcasting owe credit of their invention to the inventor of the camera?

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PM_UR_NUMBER_IN_HEX t1_iydgfk2 wrote

I am a computer scientist. Computers are extremely old. The first program was written before workable computer existed and well before the 1900s. Unless you have unlimited tape the machine can't exist. It's just supposed to be the simplest possible computer.

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Sparkybear t1_iydsl5i wrote

Theoretical and fictional mean the same thing. A device with infinite memory is a thing of fiction, but because it's a useful concept for theories tested in math and science we label it theoretical instead.

Beyond that, the first computer was built by Babbage in the 1830s, 100 years before the Turing machine was thought up, unfortunately he died before he finished his general purpose analytical machine, but his differece engines are generally considered the first iterations of modern computers.

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