The EDVAC leap

New technologies often allow us new ways of doing work. Many times, we see the new way only after the technology is developed.

Two early computing devices were ENIAC and EDVAC. Both were created in the nineteen-forties and used to compute ballistics tables for the US Army. ENIAC was created first, as an electronic calculating machine. Previous calculating machines were either mechanical (all gears, rods, and levers such as Babbage's Difference Engine) or electromechanical (electrical relays but not vacuum tubes).

EDVAC followed ENIAC and was quite different.

ENIAC was an electronic version of a mechanical calculating machine. Mechnical calculators used rings to hold digit values. Think of them as fance versions of old-style car odometers. ENIAC used electronic circuits to duplicate the physical rings of machines. It used decimal arithmetic, with each digit having one of ten possible values. It was a "direct port" of the electromechanical design into electronics.

EDVAC used a different design, one made possible by electronics. EDVAC did not duplicate the ten-digit rings, it used binary values and two-state memory digits (today known as 'bits'). It had other innovations too. One can draw a sharp line between ENIAC and EDVAC and label the early part "calculators" and the later part "computers".

But perhaps this experience tells us about our inventive skills. We use a new technology to build a new version of something, duplicating the design. Then we invent new ways to use the technology, creating new designs that were not possible with the old technology. With electronic calculators, we had to build ENIAC first. We could not go straight to EDVAC.

Another example is automobiles. When first created, they were close replications of carriages. The term "horseless carriage" really meant a horseless carriage! The initial design was a carriage that could move about without the aid of a horse. We gained knowledge about motors and their application to carriages, and made design changes. The automobile grew out of the horseless carriage, providing benefits that we could not see prior to the invention of the horseless carriage.

When confronted with a new technology, we do not see the range of possible applications and the potential uses. (OK, that's a pretty trite observation.) But here's the thing: We need the new technology in place, and then we can have the vision of new devices, devices that break from traditional design. The new designs are very different from the old.

This is the EDVAC leap. (The name is somewhat arbitrary. I wanted to give EDVAC some recognition.) We can understand a new technology and then leap to a new set of designs, devices, and uses.

Electronic calculators have been done. Automobiles have been done. Which is not to say that they are finished, but that we've had the EDVAC leap for them and learned how to use those technologies. Other new technologies may lead to other EDVAC leaps:

Electric/battery-powered cars
Segways
Social networks
Twitter
Wearable computers
WiMax and ubiquitous connectivity

Cell phones were originally cordless phones with a much larger range. Now they let us send and receive text messages and pictures, store information, and play TV shows. Who knows what new these technologies will let us do? All we need is the EDVAC leap.