Computers do more than arithmetic
Many persons who are not conversant with mathematical studies imagine
that because the business of [Babbage's Analytical Engine] is to give
its results in numerical notation, the nature of its processes must
consequently be arithmetical and numerical, rather than algebraical and
analytical. This is an error. The engine can arrange and combine its
numerical quantities exactly as if they were letters or any other
general symbols; and in fact it might bring out its results in
algebraic notation, were provisions made accordingly.
-- Ada Augusta, Countess of Lovelace, (1844)