🚀 go-pugleaf

I think it should be clear by now that regardless of who did what
"first" in computers, there were lots of creative people chasing
the same goals at roughly the same time. The technologies had
matured enough to make computers possible, so people tried to
build computers. I think there's more useful history in looking
at _what_ was built and succeeded than _who_ built something first.

The second best example of an unattributable "first" in computers
is probably ferrite core memory: there are no less than 3 valid
claimants for having done it "first" Jay Forrester, An Wang, and
J.A. Rajchmann. They were all working independently, and I believe
at least two separate patents were issued. 

About the only "first" historians seem to agree on is that the
Manchester Mark I ran the "first stored program" of any computer.
Some people have grumbled that Manchester's "first" wasn't a
particularly useful program (testing primes, or something, as I
recall) and the machine wasn't elaborate enough at that point to do
anything very big. Personally, I think they managed to implement
the first RISC machine :->

Rick.
smith@sctc.com        arden hills, minnesota