&gt; Computers are just really fast calculators.<p>In what way is a Universal Turing Machine equivalent, stored-program, probably Von Neumann architecture computer <i>in any way</i> &quot;really just&quot; a fast calculator? The computer may contain an ALU, but the ability to change the program makes the computer capable of far more that a fancy ALU (calculator).<p>There are a <i>lot</i> of people that wish they could stuff the genie called &quot;Turing complete&quot; back in its bottle and go back to the days of selling merely a calculator (or &quot;app&quot;liance), but as Cory Doctorow put it[1], &quot;...an appliance is not a stripped-down computer -- it is a fully functional computer with spyware on it out of the box.&quot;<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=HUEvRyemKSg" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=HUEvRyemKSg</a>