5 ms·

First killer app was calculating trajectories for artillery.

vkou 7y ago
This is both true, and humorous. A lot of advances in mechanical computing were driven by the needs of WWI and WWII artillery battalion colonels, and ship captains - hitting distant, often-times moving targets at different elevations, and in various wind conditions. For example, the Mark I mechanical computer[1] could, when pointed at a target, measure its distance, altitude and heading, its own ship's speed, pitch, and heading, current windspeed - and combine that with the chosen projectile type, weight, propellant type, and current temperature - all to compute a firing solution that had the best chance of sinking ships adorned with swastikas, or a rising sun. Not a general-purpose computation machine, but work on these sorts of devices heavily overlapped with work on programmable computers. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_I_Fire_Control_Computer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_I_Fire_Control_Computer
tomcam 7y ago
That was my dad, in WWII. He was the only one in his unit who could do the math. He kept going AWOL but they couldn’t do more than bring him back down to private because no one else could do the trig.
- Torwald 7y ago
  > no one else could do the trick. Haha lol. Happy downvoting, cunts! I accept it, it's worth it.
  - sctb 7y ago
    Could you please review the guidelines? Posting like this is just right out. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - Torwald 7y ago
      I don't know how else I could have made my point. And yes, I feel my comment adds to the conversation.
intuitionist 7y ago
Quite literally a killer app, at that. As were many of the other earliest uses of computers -- wartime cryptanalysis and numerical computations for nuclear weapon development.
- mhh__ 7y ago
  Killer perhaps, but I'd rather numerical than experimental development of nuclear weapons
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

vkou 7y ago

This is both true, and humorous. A lot of advances in mechanical computing were driven by the needs of WWI and WWII artillery battalion colonels, and ship captains - hitting distant, often-times moving targets at different elevations, and in various wind conditions. For example, the Mark I mechanical computer[1] could, when pointed at a target, measure its distance, altitude and heading, its own ship's speed, pitch, and heading, current windspeed - and combine that with the chosen projectile type, weight, propellant type, and current temperature - all to compute a firing solution that had the best chance of sinking ships adorned with swastikas, or a rising sun. Not a general-purpose computation machine, but work on these sorts of devices heavily overlapped with work on programmable computers. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_I_Fire_Control_Computer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_I_Fire_Control_Computer

tomcam 7y ago

That was my dad, in WWII. He was the only one in his unit who could do the math. He kept going AWOL but they couldn’t do more than bring him back down to private because no one else could do the trig.

Torwald 7y ago
> no one else could do the trick. Haha lol. Happy downvoting, cunts! I accept it, it's worth it.
- sctb 7y ago
  Could you please review the guidelines? Posting like this is just right out. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - Torwald 7y ago
    I don't know how else I could have made my point. And yes, I feel my comment adds to the conversation.

intuitionist 7y ago

Quite literally a killer app, at that. As were many of the other earliest uses of computers -- wartime cryptanalysis and numerical computations for nuclear weapon development.

mhh__ 7y ago
Killer perhaps, but I'd rather numerical than experimental development of nuclear weapons

deleted 7y ago

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