SOMETHING
TO THINK ABOUT
A
hundred years it was quite possible to read in American and British
newspapers that “a famous computer has died yesterday, of natural causes at
the age of 76.”
How
is this possible? For thousands of year “being a computer”, meant
that you excelled in arithmetic and mathematics. It was quite elusive
and exclusive group of “wizzkids” als math-genuises, many of them
were women !
Computers
were employed by the government, military forces, big corporations
and architects.
Computers,
in the beginning of the 20th, were used to plan roads and
motorways, to compose maps, material-strength for architects and
builders. And last but not least: the Army wanted to know, how far
their canons reached and the ammount of destuction assumed. So did
the Navy. What was the effect of weatherconditions on the performance
of bullets, mortars and grenades. There was a lot of work to be done.
World War 1 was about to explode.
It
were “military computers”, who planned and organised the
NAZI-invasions in Norway, Denmark, the two kingdoms (Belgium and the
Netherlands), Luxemburg and the Republic of France.
Their
military might, with that of England, was crushed within 6 weeks.
Victory for the German military genius and their military planners.
Their
task became even more complex, when Hitler ordered millions of
soldiers to invade the Soviet Union.
Shortly
before the war proto-computers were developed (IBM, Poland). They
were used to decrypt the messages from the Enigma-machine. This was a
complex German encoding proces of the military messages, to the
commanders in the field (U-boats a.o). The enormous flow of urgent en
very important texts, sped up, the development of computers and their
calculating potential.
It
even became a anomaly, to say, that you worked as a computer.
Immense
calculations are made my powerful and accesable machines. Sometimes
we get a glimpse of a (potential) human computer; during a
television-gameshow, in the circus or a freakshow. Most certainly,
you will meet them at
THE
WORDCHAMPIONSHIPS MEMORY,
held
each year in Oxford, England.
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