Today is Ada Lovelace Day
To understand why Ada Lovelace,
nee Augusta Ada Byron, is celebrated on October 15 each year it is important to understand a little of the history of computers.
Until the end of the 19th century the term
computer applied to a person who calculated things. During that century the work of Charles Babbage caused people to realise machines never get tired and
can perform calculations much faster and more accurately than any team
of human computers ever could.
If we ignore the abacus then it is generally accepted that the first mechanical computer or automatic computing engine concept was Babbage's Difference Engine of 1822.Unfortunately, because of funding he was never able to complete a full-scale
functional version of this machine.
However, in June1991 the Science Museum in London completed
the
Difference Engine No 2, using Babbage's plans, for the bicentennial year of his birth and
nine years later completed the printing mechanism.
Babbage went on to propose the first general mechanical computer, the Analytical
Engine which contained an Arithmetical Logic Unit, basic flow control and an integrated memory.In layman's terms, this was the first machine which could hold a programme and process calculations using that programme. (If my simplification of this is inaccurate please forgive me). What I mean to say is: this is the first machine which I would call a computer rather than a calculator. Once again Babbage was unable to fund the construction of his theoretical designs and it was left to his son, Henry, to have a stab at it in 1910.
Now we can consider our friend Ada.
Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace, was born Augusta Ada Byron on 10 December 1815 as the only legitimate
child to the poet Lord Byron
and his wife
Anne Isabella Byron. All of Byron's other children were born out of wedlock.
Byron separated from his wife a month after Ada was born and left
England forever four months later, eventually dying of disease in the Greek War of Independence when Ada was eight years old. Ada's mother remained bitter at Lord Byron and promoted Ada's interest in mathematics and logic in an effort to prevent her from developing what she saw as the insanity
seen in her father. Ada, however, remained interested in him despite this and was, upon her eventual death, buried next to him at her request. Ada was employed by Babbage to translate a report on his Analytical Engine by the Italian Menebera which she did whilst adding 20,000 words of her own commentary. Her notes reveal that her understanding of what computers could do
and might be capable of was much greater than her employer's. These notes on the Analytical Engine include what is recognised as the first algorithm intended to be processed by a machine: because of this, she is often considered the world's first computer programmer. to illustrate her foresight consider this extract from her notes:
The Analytical Engine] might act upon other things besides number,
were objects found whose mutual fundamental relations could be expressed
by those of the abstract science of operations, and which should be
also susceptible of adaptations to the action of the operating notation
and mechanism of the engine...Supposing, for instance, that the fundamental relations of pitched
sounds in the science of harmony and of musical composition were
susceptible of such expression and adaptations, the engine might compose
elaborate and scientific pieces of music of any degree of complexity or
extent.
This view of Ada as the superior intellect of the relationship is not without its detractors but when the USA Department of Defence asked Honeywell Bull to design a computer language to replace the hundreds currently in use the name it was given was
ADA. This is an international standard recognised by the US Military. The Military Standard reference manual was approved on December 10, 1980 (Ada Lovelace's birthday), and given the number MIL-STD-1815 in honour of Ada Lovelace's birth year.
Babbage had some understanding of her ability as demonstrated in his description of her to Michael Faraday as:
An enchantress who has thrown her magical spell around the most abstract
of sciences and has grasped it with a force which few masculine
intellects could have exerted over it.
Ada went off the rails a little later in life as she had numerous affairs and took to gambling with some of her men-friends. Her attempts to create an algorithm which would beat the odds failed, leaving her with large debts. She died of uterine cancer aged 36 and during her lengthy suffering her mother prevented friends from visiting her until Ada embraced the Christian faith.
Notwithstanding her personal failings her significance in the development of computing should not be underestimated.
It is a shame, in my view, that the date chosen to celebrate Ada has no significance to her life but was selected by the
Women's Lib movement and hi-jacked by them thus detracting from the glory which should be Ada's.
I understand that the lock gate repairs should be completed next week and so a completion date of November 25 is still realistic. 
The only one of us with a traditional engine, Jarrah was lifted next: watched closely by the owner Nigel who fitted it out himself.
In order that the boat is lifted in as level an attitude as possible the lifting slings have to be carefully aligned. This is traditionally done after stomping in thick mud before assuming the appropriate positions on the boat roof
As Gecko is rather tail-heavy she was loaded facing backwards on the lorry.
The exit from Willowbridge Boatyard is not generous and appears rather scary. It was probably here that the contents of our 'fridge decided to relocate to the kitchen floor.
.jpg)
The southern Oxford Canal is joined several times by the River Cherwell and these lozenge-shaped locks prevent changes in the river conditions from affecting the canal.
