Re Hero’s Engine, that’s an interesting reference. Is there any evidence that this was ever built? (Old inventors drew up a lot of plans that were never implemented and may not even have worked.)
Re Babbage: The Difference Engine was not a computer. It was a calculating machine, but it was not programmable or general-purpose. (The Analytic Engine would have been a computer, but Babbage never even finished designing it.)
Well, people could barely get computers working with electromechanical parts in the 1930s, and those machines weren’t very practical. Just seems impossible on the face of it that you could get something serious working 100 years earlier.
The Difference Engine, as you correctly point out, was much more feasible, and Babbage probably could have finished building it, if he hadn’t fumbled the project.
That sounds like an outside view argument, making the use of the example in general argument purely circular.
I don’t point out that the Difference Engine was more feasible. I specifically asked you for such an argument and you sidestepped. I don’t think anyone has ever made such an argument.
I only point out that the Difference Engine was feasible, which is an independent claim. For a century people claimed that Babbage’s designs were infeasible. This proves too much. Would you have made that mistake? If the construction disproved the conventional wisdom, it is not enough to minimally adjust your conclusions to avoid the falsehoods, but to adjust your methods.
Thanks.
Re Hero’s Engine, that’s an interesting reference. Is there any evidence that this was ever built? (Old inventors drew up a lot of plans that were never implemented and may not even have worked.)
Re Babbage: The Difference Engine was not a computer. It was a calculating machine, but it was not programmable or general-purpose. (The Analytic Engine would have been a computer, but Babbage never even finished designing it.)
Sure, Babbage didn’t finish the design, but how to you justify
Do you claim that to distinguish the technology necessary for the two machines?
Well, people could barely get computers working with electromechanical parts in the 1930s, and those machines weren’t very practical. Just seems impossible on the face of it that you could get something serious working 100 years earlier.
The Difference Engine, as you correctly point out, was much more feasible, and Babbage probably could have finished building it, if he hadn’t fumbled the project.
That sounds like an outside view argument, making the use of the example in general argument purely circular.
I don’t point out that the Difference Engine was more feasible. I specifically asked you for such an argument and you sidestepped. I don’t think anyone has ever made such an argument.
I only point out that the Difference Engine was feasible, which is an independent claim. For a century people claimed that Babbage’s designs were infeasible. This proves too much. Would you have made that mistake? If the construction disproved the conventional wisdom, it is not enough to minimally adjust your conclusions to avoid the falsehoods, but to adjust your methods.