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Comment on What Did Ada Lovelace’s Program Actually Do?parent

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You can see the exact 'program' here [1].

It's really just a series of mathematical steps with a store of values in between. Notions that would have clearly taken it from being a series of mathematical steps, to a program, such as branching, looping, or jumping are left completely unspecified. So her 'loop' was specified literally as "here follows a repetition of operations 13-23".

In other words, "should repeat" is left an as exercise to the reader.

[1] - https://i.imgur.com/HSWjbUl.jpg

It's easy to be dismissive from today's perspective, but I think it adequately conveys the algorithm. As I don't think Babbage ever published an instruction set I'm not sure it could have gone a lot further.

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