[ Ray Allis 920925.0930 ]
This just arrived from another net I subscribe to. Maybe it will help you
place Alan Turing in the scheme of things.
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Sender: History of Computing Issues <SHOTHC-L%SIVM.BITNET@pucc.Princeton.EDU>
The following quote is attributed to Frankel in:
Randell, B.,
The Colossus in a History of Computing in the Twentieth Century,
(Eds. N. Metropolis, J. Howlett and G-C. Rota), Academic Press 1980,
pp 47-92.
I am wondering if anyone can tell me who Frankel was and how valid
the quote might be. Is there any direct quote of Von Neumann attributing
the fundamental concept of the (stored program) computer to Turing?
.in 5
"Many people have acclaimed von Neumann as the 'father of the computer'
(in a modern sense of the term) but I am sure that he would never have
made that mistake himself. He might well be called the midwife, perhaps,
but he firmly emphasized to me, and to others I am sure, that the
fundamental conception is owing to Turing--insofar as not anticipated by
Babbage, Lovelace and others. In my view von Neumann's essential role
was in making the world aware of these fundamental concepts introduced by
Turing and of the development work carried out in the Moore School and
elsewhere. Certainly I am indebted to him for my introduction to these
ideas and actions. Both von Neumann and Turing, of course, also made
substantial contributions to the 'reduction to practice' of these
concepts but I would not regard these as comparable in importance with
the introduction and explication of the concept of a computer able to
store in its memory its program of activities and of modifying that
program in the course of these activities."