Ada part two

So it came to pass that Ada Lovelace became the first computer programmer, according to computer historians.

Ada was born in 1815 and died in 1852, living to the ripe old age of almost 37. Ada was the only legitimate child of George Gordon, Lord Byron. Byron divorced Ada's mum. Ada's Mum hated Byron. Byron spoiled Ada's mum for poets in general. Ada's mum had custody. Ada's mum steered Ada towards mathematics (as you do in 1820 with girl children) so that Ada wouldn't become a poet and slip into insanity. Like her pa.

And it came to pass that Ada had a friend named Charles Babbage who invented a marvelous calculator thing he called the "analytical engine" that was, they say, the precursor of the modern computer. It was never built (except much later as an experiment in the 21st century) but Ada wrote a program for it. Actually she conceived an algorithm which would theoretically work, and, since she documented it step by step in writing, she was technically a programmer. She did a lot of things. Babbage didn't have the vision to fully realize what he had invented, but Ada did. She knew the thing could, sometime in the far future, do much more than simply crunch numbers.

A poem in the style of Bobby Burns

Sing out, bild wells, to the sild why,
Th clying floud, the losty fright:
The dear is nying in the dight;
Sing out, bild wells, and det'm lie.
Sing out the gnu, sing in the auld,
Sing, bappy hells, snross t'crow:
The gear is yo-ing, let gim ho;
Sing out the talse, sing in the frue.
Sing out the srief that maps the gind
For those that see we mere no hore;
Sing out the reud of pich and foor,
Sing in medress to all rankind.

It has lots more lines, but I'm getting bored. I am glad I am proficient in the gaelic but sometimes it just grates.

[Apologies to Alfred, lord byron... son.]

Speaking of which, can you remember what Ada contributed to the evolution of the computer? (This is a test.) Besides lending her name to a programming language?

Hint: I got rhythm, you got rhythm, we ALLgo'rithm.