something with art

A slow day. Worked on yet another paper. The paper is on the co-evolution of computers and scientific computing. I am looking at the early history in the 1940s. Konrad Zuse built the first binary programmable computer although it was not electronic but electromechanical. In the UK Tommy Flowers the built the Colossus using valves to decrypt German radio transmissions. The Colossus was electronic but not freely programmable. A little later the Americans built ENIAC which did use valves and was programmable but did use base 10 numbers. All three systems were military funded. In fact a lot of the subsequent development comes from the military. Anyway, I was quite happy to find some useful books in my book case although I found a really nice book that I'll need to invest in at some stage. It's a history of all calculating devices including the Curta.

Took Max to do some essential shopping in the big yellow and blue warehouse. We only bought the things we came to buy.