Driftless
Donor
That's it.... Move the setting to Macao, Saigon, or Athens during the lead ups to their respective invasions. Bahh Gawd, a Casablanca replacement must proceed!
A Blunted Sickle - Thread II
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That's it.... Move the setting to Macao, Saigon, or Athens during the lead ups to their respective invasions. Bahh Gawd, a Casablanca replacement must proceed!
Eric S. Raymond
Banned
Here's a technological divergence from OTL that really jumped out at me. The history of computers will be quite different.
IOTL ENIAC was funded in 1943 by the Army's war budget (intended to compute artillery tables for Aberdeen Proving Grounds). Given the difference in U.S. military priorities (and much less funding for the Army) this doesn't happen ITTL.
The result: ITTL the 1948 construction of BABY at Manchester University - the first true stored-program computer - becomes (rather than J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly's ENIAC in 1945) the origin point for later digital computing. A few years later, Eckert & Mauchly get an ENIAC-like project funded to do calculations for the U.S.'s A-bomb catchup effort, but it is way too late to assert priority and Univac is never founded.
(IOTL, my father was Eckert's contract monitor at Univac.)
In view of the higher levels of investment capital available in a less exhausted UK, and the retention of trade barriers between the U.S. and the British Empire, the consequences are large. Ferranti, the British firm that built the first commercial computer following on BABY, is the major player in the early years of the new industry rather than being shouldered aside by Univac and finally going bankrupt in 1993.
Konrad Zuse doesn't get funded by the Nazis because no loot from France, but his Z3 is not destroyed because the allies aren't bombing Berlin in 1943 ITTL. After the war he starts his own company and the Zuse logo becomes a familiar sight in Europe during the 1950s.
The switch from tubes to transistors happens a bit sooner, because with Bell Labs not largely committed to war work solid-state electronics got off to a slightly faster start (pdf27, #1272 in thread 1). Dennard scaling (what you probably think of as Moore's law) runs about one doubling cycle ahead of OTL before running up against quantum limits a bit earlier in the early 21st century than OTL.
Packet-switched networking is still a U.S. invention ultimately driven by nuclear tension with the Soviets; there aren't any obvious knock-ons from the U.S. staying out of the war to change that. So the Internet arrives roughly on schedule in the late 1960s or early 70s.
But computers in general are not the American near-monopoly they were OTL; the Entente has a stronger technology position. Ferranti, Compagnie Bull, Olivetti, and (later) Nixdorf/Siemens compete far better in Europe and the Franco-British dominions than in OTL.
Perhaps in this timeline "Silicon Glen" is Silicon Valley rather than an imitation of same.
IOTL ENIAC was funded in 1943 by the Army's war budget (intended to compute artillery tables for Aberdeen Proving Grounds). Given the difference in U.S. military priorities (and much less funding for the Army) this doesn't happen ITTL.
The result: ITTL the 1948 construction of BABY at Manchester University - the first true stored-program computer - becomes (rather than J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly's ENIAC in 1945) the origin point for later digital computing. A few years later, Eckert & Mauchly get an ENIAC-like project funded to do calculations for the U.S.'s A-bomb catchup effort, but it is way too late to assert priority and Univac is never founded.
(IOTL, my father was Eckert's contract monitor at Univac.)
In view of the higher levels of investment capital available in a less exhausted UK, and the retention of trade barriers between the U.S. and the British Empire, the consequences are large. Ferranti, the British firm that built the first commercial computer following on BABY, is the major player in the early years of the new industry rather than being shouldered aside by Univac and finally going bankrupt in 1993.
Konrad Zuse doesn't get funded by the Nazis because no loot from France, but his Z3 is not destroyed because the allies aren't bombing Berlin in 1943 ITTL. After the war he starts his own company and the Zuse logo becomes a familiar sight in Europe during the 1950s.
The switch from tubes to transistors happens a bit sooner, because with Bell Labs not largely committed to war work solid-state electronics got off to a slightly faster start (pdf27, #1272 in thread 1). Dennard scaling (what you probably think of as Moore's law) runs about one doubling cycle ahead of OTL before running up against quantum limits a bit earlier in the early 21st century than OTL.
Packet-switched networking is still a U.S. invention ultimately driven by nuclear tension with the Soviets; there aren't any obvious knock-ons from the U.S. staying out of the war to change that. So the Internet arrives roughly on schedule in the late 1960s or early 70s.
But computers in general are not the American near-monopoly they were OTL; the Entente has a stronger technology position. Ferranti, Compagnie Bull, Olivetti, and (later) Nixdorf/Siemens compete far better in Europe and the Franco-British dominions than in OTL.
Perhaps in this timeline "Silicon Glen" is Silicon Valley rather than an imitation of same.
Rick was OTL in Paris up until the very last moment before the German forces arrived in it. He might have left when the place was briefly occupied ITTL, though whether he ends up opening a bar in Casablanca is anyone's guess.
Eric S. Raymond
Banned
I'm gonna plump for Athens, because it's close enough to the former Ottoman Empire that Sidney Greenstreet's all-important fez is still plausible.
In exchange for a donation to a charity the author supports, you can get the timeline for 1940.
I believe pdf has said the same for 1941 will be available at some point.
Some insufficiently polished brass was discovered at Sunday Divisions by the captain of HMS Barham, at anchor in Scapa Flow?
It's the biggest port in Africa and has the odd major riot. It's probably not that boring!
1st Lt Kermit A Tyler gets a rocket from his OC for sounding alert at 8am on a Sunday when an expected flight of B-17s is picked up on radar?
Lost of things might happen. I haven't plotted one in as of right now.
True enough, but a lot of that is derived from the fact that India was split up into multiple countries with a lot of new grievances between them.
Shooting a bunch of your own guys in wartime as a first resort rather than a last one isn't great for morale.
Besides, he's got an appointment with Jules-Henri Desfourneaux in his future - he can say pretty much what he wants but as soon as the Entente find out what happened in Poland then he's had it.
Goa? Problem is that none of those happen at about the right time ITTL. Shanghai, maybe?
Possibly - Baby owed an awful lot to Colossus though, and Tommy Flowers will probably continue to work on all-electric telephone exchanges. He'll have a brief contact with Bletchley Park working on an electronic Bombe, but that's unlikely to have much influence.
Possibly. Thing is Ferranti are going to be doing lots of other things as well - with no NATO umbrella and more cash, the UK defence industry is going to be very busy. They might well be busy with systems like Peevish or CDS rather than commercial computers.
He did that in OTL anyway, and eventually got taken over by Siemens.
Much as I'd like it to be otherwise, Silicon Fen is always going to be a derivative rather than the original...
On the Indian republic count, would a purely figurehead King-Emperor have any use being retained if it reduced internal squabbles and the chances of breakaway region attempts?
A thought given the very abnormally cold weather in the American Midwest.... 
18 Jan 1942
Due to lack of Fuel, von Falkenhorst pulls back the German Army's farthest Northern troops over 100 miles south to the outskirts of Trondheim ceding a large portion of northern Norway to the Entente
4 Mar 1942
Entente troops finally are able to move south to the Trondheim area to the new Front lines.
18 Jan 1942
Due to lack of Fuel, von Falkenhorst pulls back the German Army's farthest Northern troops over 100 miles south to the outskirts of Trondheim ceding a large portion of northern Norway to the Entente
4 Mar 1942
Entente troops finally are able to move south to the Trondheim area to the new Front lines.
What India? & what new grievances?
Even in mythology, let alone recorded history, there never was a time when the sub continent was not split into multiple states divided by ethnic, religious or political basis with each at the throats of their competitors in hot or at least cold war.
Equally even within many of those states, there was always community violence with neighbour acting against neighbour at a frequency and a level of vehemence worse than the European Pogroms against the Jews up to 1900
Not to forget the caste system ... an issue even today
(Some scholars put that down to historical ethnic factors derived from the Aryan invasions into Dravidian territories)
With the question of a story only thread raised again, it made me wonder when an updated PDF will be available.
I was previously penny pinching while in a start-up, so couldn't justify the expense when I could read it for free here. Now that I've rejoined the world of 9 to 5(ish, add more hours as necessary) corporate work, I actually have spare income. I would love to chuck some of that spare income towards a writer that's given me dozens of hours of enjoyment, and a good cause to boot.
I was previously penny pinching while in a start-up, so couldn't justify the expense when I could read it for free here. Now that I've rejoined the world of 9 to 5(ish, add more hours as necessary) corporate work, I actually have spare income. I would love to chuck some of that spare income towards a writer that's given me dozens of hours of enjoyment, and a good cause to boot.
Renault is French. You know how we French call a major riot? ‘Samedi.’
marathag
Banned
From LINK
the Atanasoff-Berry Computer (ABC) was the first electronic computer.
It was designed and built by John Vincent Atanasoff and his assistant, Clifford E. Berry. At the time, Atanasoff was teaching Physics, and Berry was a graduate student in Electrical Engineering. They worked on the computer from 1939 until 1942 when it was abandoned due to WWII. Although it still needed some work, it was completely functional. While it was smaller than other computers of the time period, it was also the first to use capacitors for storage, as in current RAM, and was capable of performing 30 simultaneous operations. Unfortunately, after being abandoned, it was neglected and eventually disassembled for parts. However, in 1994, a team from Iowa State University began to rebuild the computer, finishing it in 1997
After receiving his PhD, he began to experiment with other, better methods including the use of mechanical and electromechanical techniques. Then in 1937, he came up with a design of a fully electronic computer.
The breakthrough that Atanasoff made was the following ideas, which he jotted down on a napkin in a tavern.2
- •Electricity and electronics, not mechanical methods
- •Binary numbers internally
- •Separate memory made with capacitors, refreshed to maintain 0 or I state
- •Direct 0-1 logic operations, not enumeration
Furthermore, the ENIAC successor, along with modern computers, are based on these ideas. Atanasoff even had direct contact with Mauchly, one of the chief builders of the ENIAC computer, as seen in Atanasoff’s letter to him, written in 1941.
Replica
Technically, the ABC was an electronic equation solver. It could find solutions to systems of simultaneous linear equations with up to 29 unknowns, a type of problem encountered in Atansasoff's physics work. Construction of the ABC began in 1938 at Iowa State College (now University) in Ames, Iowa. It was about the size of a large desk, weighed 750 lbs, computed 0.06 operations per second (sustained) and had 0.37 KB of memory. It could also do 30 add/subtract operations per second. While not a computer in the modern sense (since it did not store its own program), it pioneered various techniques in digital computer design including binary arithmetic, parallel processing, and electronic (vacuum tube) switching elements. The device was completed in 1942 and worked, although its spark-gap printer mechanism needed further development. The legal dimension to the ABC story involves a lawsuit between two computer makers, Honeywell and Sperry-Rand. In 1967, Honeywell sued Sperry over their ENIAC patents using the ABC as evidence of prior art. (ENIAC was an early digital electronic calculator completed in 1946). After years of proceedings, on October 19, 1973 the judge in the case, Earl R. Larson, agreed with Honeywell that some of the ideas in the ENIAC, which had been considered the 'world's first computer,' in fact came from Atanasoff during a four-day visit ENIAC designer John Mauchly made to Atanasoff at Iowa State before ENIAC was designed. There was also months of correspondence between the two in which Mauchly expressed his desire to build a similar device. The net result of this judgment was that no one owned the patent on the computer: it was free to be developed by all. Gordon Bell has called this the 'dis-invention of the computer.'
The value of a King is as a generally accepted national symbol. The problem is, just like Ireland, the King-Emperor had come to be a symbol of foreign domination and repression rather than of national identity.
18 Jan 1942A thought given the very abnormally cold weather in the American Midwest....
18 Jan 1942
Due to lack of Fuel, von Falkenhorst pulls back the German Army's farthest Northern troops over 100 miles south to the outskirts of Trondheim ceding a large portion of northern Norway to the Entente
4 Mar 1942
Entente troops finally are able to move south to the Trondheim area to the new Front lines.
Due to lack of fuel, von Falkenhorst decides he can't pull his troops back from the Mo line and in any case even if he did has insufficient fuel to fight a mobile war which would be forced on him if he decided to defend anywhere else.
India as we know it today came into being with the Raj, which created a context where there was always an "other" force ready to crack-down on inter-communal violence (e.g. the use of British or Sikh troops in a Hindu/Muslim fight). What partition did was create two polarised communities (India and Pakistan) and handed them their own armed forces for use against the other community, both externally and in the case of East Pakistan in particular internally. At the same time the "external" force willing to crack down on internal violence was either removed (Pakistan) or weakened (India).
As I understand it, the answers to that are No and No.
I've got to finish writing 1941 first!With the question of a story only thread raised again, it made me wonder when an updated PDF will be available.
I was previously penny pinching while in a start-up, so couldn't justify the expense when I could read it for free here. Now that I've rejoined the world of 9 to 5(ish, add more hours as necessary) corporate work, I actually have spare income. I would love to chuck some of that spare income towards a writer that's given me dozens of hours of enjoyment, and a good cause to boot.
It's usually much more boring when I'm there - Pau for most of next week in fact...
iTTL, I'm not even sure that von Falkenhorst gets sentenced to death. Without the commando order...
Also, in terms of number of citizens killed in this war so far. I'm guessing that Poland is first, but who is second? (For these purposes, I'm treating France and the UK as separate from their empire/commonwealth...
If he is that short of fuel, how can he supply forces at the Mo line ? Falling back would be falling back on supply, otherwise they are just going to freeze to death as the RAF/RN ( and friends ) will have not only blocked any supply by sea but be shooting up his very limited supply routes ( not many alternate roads at all )
Eric S. Raymond
Banned
About the Atanasoff-Berry computer...
I knew of it, which is the reason my original post on the topic was carefully worded. "What was the first digital computer" is a contentious question because some of the contenders didn't have all the traits we now consider diagnostic. The question we can answer is "What is the earliest contender that is (a) a true digital computer, and (b) from which digital computers today derive?"
Three traits at issue are (1) Turing-completeness, (2) whether the machine was "stored-program" - that is, stored its code in digital memory rather than needing to be rewired for new computation, (3) whether it has architectural descendants today.
The ABC computer was not Turing-complete and not stored-program. It influenced the design of ENIAC.
The Z3/Z4 was not stored-program and had no descendants. (Its language, Plankalkul, was magnificently weird.) It was Turing-complete.
The first version of ENIAC was Turing-complete but not stored-program. (Used decimal arithmetic internally, not binary) It had many later descendants.
BABY (aka the Manchester Mark I) was Turing-complete and stored-program. It influenced later designs.
The Bombe (the first Bletchley Park cryptanalysis engine) influenced BABY. It was neither stored-program nor Turing-complete. Colossus (1943) was Turing-complete but not stored-program; it was a deep-dark secret until the 1970s and did not influence BABY, ENIAC, or later designs.
Though a patent court gave ABC priority, most historians consider it only a precursor of the true digital computer because it failed Turing-completeness. So did the Bombe and Colossus. Thus, they are generally considered to fail criterion (a). (Wikipedia waffles and back-steps about the Colossus rather entertainingly.)
Choosing among the Turing-complete Z3/Z4, ENIAC, and BABY is more difficult. The Z3/Z4 is generally dismissed because it had no architectural descendants. (Some German patriots half-seriously dispute this.)
BABY has a case based on the fact that early versions of the ENIAC were not stored-program and it can therefore be argued it fails criterion (a). Historians have generally chosen not to disqualify it because it was upgraded to stored-program operation. in 1948 before BABY became operational. See https://www.computerhistory.org/atc...c-an-example-of-why-computer-history-is-hard/
Blunted Sickle relevance: if ENIAC hadn't happened, would BABY have? pdf27 appears skeptical on the grounds that the designer of Colossus, absent the later phase of WWII, would have continued upgrading telephone networks. The reason I project that BABY would have been built anyway, even without Colossus, is Alan Turing. He had already designed the Bombe at POD, he had formalized the idea of Turing-completeness back in 1936, and IOTL he assisted in the Mark I's design.
I knew of it, which is the reason my original post on the topic was carefully worded. "What was the first digital computer" is a contentious question because some of the contenders didn't have all the traits we now consider diagnostic. The question we can answer is "What is the earliest contender that is (a) a true digital computer, and (b) from which digital computers today derive?"
Three traits at issue are (1) Turing-completeness, (2) whether the machine was "stored-program" - that is, stored its code in digital memory rather than needing to be rewired for new computation, (3) whether it has architectural descendants today.
The ABC computer was not Turing-complete and not stored-program. It influenced the design of ENIAC.
The Z3/Z4 was not stored-program and had no descendants. (Its language, Plankalkul, was magnificently weird.) It was Turing-complete.
The first version of ENIAC was Turing-complete but not stored-program. (Used decimal arithmetic internally, not binary) It had many later descendants.
BABY (aka the Manchester Mark I) was Turing-complete and stored-program. It influenced later designs.
The Bombe (the first Bletchley Park cryptanalysis engine) influenced BABY. It was neither stored-program nor Turing-complete. Colossus (1943) was Turing-complete but not stored-program; it was a deep-dark secret until the 1970s and did not influence BABY, ENIAC, or later designs.
Though a patent court gave ABC priority, most historians consider it only a precursor of the true digital computer because it failed Turing-completeness. So did the Bombe and Colossus. Thus, they are generally considered to fail criterion (a). (Wikipedia waffles and back-steps about the Colossus rather entertainingly.)
Choosing among the Turing-complete Z3/Z4, ENIAC, and BABY is more difficult. The Z3/Z4 is generally dismissed because it had no architectural descendants. (Some German patriots half-seriously dispute this.)
BABY has a case based on the fact that early versions of the ENIAC were not stored-program and it can therefore be argued it fails criterion (a). Historians have generally chosen not to disqualify it because it was upgraded to stored-program operation. in 1948 before BABY became operational. See https://www.computerhistory.org/atc...c-an-example-of-why-computer-history-is-hard/
Blunted Sickle relevance: if ENIAC hadn't happened, would BABY have? pdf27 appears skeptical on the grounds that the designer of Colossus, absent the later phase of WWII, would have continued upgrading telephone networks. The reason I project that BABY would have been built anyway, even without Colossus, is Alan Turing. He had already designed the Bombe at POD, he had formalized the idea of Turing-completeness back in 1936, and IOTL he assisted in the Mark I's design.
As best as I can tell, the Mughals controlled everything except the Tamil lands in the south and the far eastern part of India.
With storages in place near the frontline. I don't know whether you are native to climates with severe winters and lots of firewood, but just like the local civilians at this type of climate have always done, the armies sitting in position for prolonged periods of time in winter in WW2 (OTL Finns and Soviets at Eastern Karelia, for example) stocked up on firewood and supplies well in advance: http://sa-kuva.fi/neo?tem=webneo_im...12364224164c2eb003535612b05&archive=&zoom=YES
http://sa-kuva.fi/neo?tem=webneo_im...225622545178861b6f5d7245f30&archive=&zoom=YES