RE: Aaron Bartell's RPG/Java comparison

I just realized where I heard the term turing machine.  I don't even know if
this guy did it, and it makes sense now _where_ I heard it.

Reading Neal Stephenson's "The Diamond Age" there was a chapter about the
castle of Turing where the king had created robots.  To run them, he would
change the posistion of the links on chain and then run them through the
robots.  Each chain would program them differently (sort of like punch
cards).  Then, one day, the robots got smart enough to program themselves
and they locked the king into the dungeon.  The protagonist of the story
figured out how to program them and shut them all down, freeing the king.
(or something similar).

Interesting stuff.

Brad

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Joe Pluta [mailto:joepluta@plutabrothers.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, February 27, 2001 8:34 AM
> To: JAVA400-L@midrange.com
> Subject: Re: Aaron Bartell's RPG/Java comparison
> 
> 
> Quite a few historians have remarked that without Alan 
> Turing, the Allies would have lost the Second World War.  He 
> broke the Enigma code, and that allowed us to win the war in 
> the Atlantic.  There was a remarkable play in Chicago called 
> "Breaking the Code" that recounted his life, which ended 
> quite tragically (by his own hand according to most accounts) 
> shortly after his arrest and loss of security clearance - for 
> being gay.  The man who may have made the most important 
> singlehanded contribution to the war effort was now deemed 
> untrustworthy by the very country he saved.  An exceptional 
> mind lost prematurely.
> 
> Joe
> 
> ---------- Original Message ----------------------------------
> From: "paul cunnane" <paul@cunnane.net>
> Reply-To: JAVA400-L@midrange.com
> Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2001 10:00:40 -0000
> 
> >I'm sorry, but referring to Alan Turing as `a British guy' 
> is like referring
> to Thomas Edison as `an American guy'!  Turing is one of 
> those names that
> should never need to be qualified.
> 
> --
> Paul
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "William Washington III" <w.washington@iols.net>
> To: <JAVA400-L@midrange.com>
> Sent: Tuesday, February 27, 2001 4:17 AM
> Subject: RE: Aaron Bartell's RPG/Java comparison
> 
> 
> > I believe a British guy, Alan Turing, proved it 
> mathematically in the
> 1940's.
> 
> 
> +---
> | This is the JAVA/400 Mailing List!
> | To submit a new message, send your mail to JAVA400-L@midrange.com.
> | To subscribe to this list send email to JAVA400-L-SUB@midrange.com.
> | To unsubscribe from this list send email to 
> JAVA400-L-UNSUB@midrange.com.
> | Questions should be directed to the list owner: joe@zappie.net
> +---
> 
> +---
> | This is the JAVA/400 Mailing List!
> | To submit a new message, send your mail to JAVA400-L@midrange.com.
> | To subscribe to this list send email to JAVA400-L-SUB@midrange.com.
> | To unsubscribe from this list send email to 
> JAVA400-L-UNSUB@midrange.com.
> | Questions should be directed to the list owner: joe@zappie.net
> +---
> 
+---
| This is the JAVA/400 Mailing List!
| To submit a new message, send your mail to JAVA400-L@midrange.com.
| To subscribe to this list send email to JAVA400-L-SUB@midrange.com.
| To unsubscribe from this list send email to JAVA400-L-UNSUB@midrange.com.
| Questions should be directed to the list owner: joe@zappie.net
+---