The next generation of Python programmers

Posted May 23, 2021 22:35 UTC (Sun) by excors (subscriber, #95769)
In reply to: The next generation of Python programmers by mjg59
Parent article: The next generation of Python programmers

>> The VERY FIRST electronic computers were all business machines - used for stuff like accounts. Computers like LEO, etc.
>
> ? EDSAC was a product of the Mathematical Laboratory at Cambridge, the Manchester Baby only existed because of the leadership of Max Newman, who held the pure mathematics chair. Both predate LEO.

As far as I can tell, the Mathematical Laboratory had little to do with mathematics, and they only called it that because they hadn't invented the term "computer" yet. (Nowadays it's the Computer Laboratory). Per https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/events/EDSAC99/history.html the early years were largely about providing calculating machines as a service to other science departments in the university (e.g. the Lab's founder was Professor of Theoretical Chemistry, and that group later made use of EDSAC 1), as well as doing research into what we'd call computer science (seemingly with emphasis on the practical side - building EDSAC, developing programming language concepts, etc, rather than working on the mathematics of computation).

Definitely wasn't for business though, it seems clear they were focused on scientific research.