According to Ada, the Analytical Engine
"might act upon other things besides number, were objects found whose mutual fundamental relations could be expressed by those of the abstract science of operations, and which should be also susceptible of adaptations to the action of the operating notation and mechanism of the engine."
It seems to be only fair to atribute to Ada Lovelace the primacy in regard to the acknowledgment of the media-universal nature of computers.
I am not really sure that I buy into this - at least partially because it seems to 'flatten' distinctions between 'media' (as in news, television, newspaper, auditory media) and 'medium'(s) [many of which may not be 'media' in any sense at all] upon which such an engine might possibly operate. I think this is pretty confusing. Gotta love air-l, home of the freewheeling mental romp... --elijah
I'd say it was Ada Lovelace who wrote eloquently about the ways in which digital code could simulate all kinds of media This is discussed at some length in Plant's Zeros and Ones