“if you put in the wrong figures, will the correct ones be output”
To be fair, an 1840 “computer” might be able to tell there was something wrong with the figures and ask about it or even correct them herself.
Babbage was being a bit obtuse there; people weren’t familiar with computing machines yet. Computer was a job, and computers were expected to be fairly intelligent.
In fact I’d say that if anything this question shows that the questioner understood enough about the new machine to realise it was not the same as they understood a computer to be, and lacked many of their abilities, and was just looking for Babbage to confirm their suspicions.
finitebanjo@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I often feel like I’m surrounded by idiots, but even I can’t begin to imagine what it must have felt like to be Charles Babbage explaining computers to people in 1840.