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Does Programming a Computer Make A New Machine?~By PolR | 756 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
Does Programming a Computer Make A New Machine?~By PolR
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, July 23 2012 @ 08:30 AM EDT
To add to that:

The main difference between Computer Science and Patent Law is
probably the term "machine" itself. Two different von Neumann
machines each with its specific tape putting out the same
calculation results are considered <em>the same</em> machine
in Computer Science, independently of their inner workings,
while Patent Law does not really care about the output, but
the inner workings are most important.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Does Programming a Computer Make A New Machine?~By PolR
Authored by: PolR on Monday, July 23 2012 @ 09:22 AM EDT
A few things:

A von Neumann machine has no tape. Your discussion of a von Newman machine is
not correct.

A Turing machine is not a physical machine. It is an abstract algorithm that
mathematicians have metaphorically called a machine. When you say you are
discussing the inner working of a machine, you actually discuss the inner
working of an algorithm.

The information initially stored on a tape for a Turing machine (or in main
memory for a stored program computer) is input to the algorithm. Also is it
modifiable by the algorithm and it is modified as the computation progresses. If
you count this information as machine structure you get the absurd result that
the machine is unable to carry out all the steps of the computation because a
different machine is made in every operation where the tape is modified.

The inner workings of a stored program computer are abundantly described in this
article. The argument that no new machine is made is about the inner workings of
actual computers.

Your interpretation of computation theory is not the justification of
"software makes a new machine" which is found in case law.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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