🚀 go-pugleaf

smith@sctc.com (Rick Smith) writes:

>jones@pyrite.cs.uiowa.edu (Douglas W. Jones) writes:

>>"What was the first programmable computer?" is ill specified question.

>>[story of ancient octal dumps from ILLIAC dating from the late '40s]

>>To make such dumps, there must have been a considerable amount of working
>>hardware -- not an entire working computer, but enough to step throug
>>memory and convert binary to octal for printing.  My suspicion is that
>>they used the CPU's data paths to do this, with a very simplified control
>>unit that turned what they had into a memory tester, but I didn't have
>>time to find out if this was so.

>>I also got the impression that they were running programs with just add,
>>jump, load and store instructions for a considerable time ...

>Thank you for poking a hole in one of the few 'firsts' I thought
>still held up!

>Things get _really_ uncertain when you consider that the octal dumper
>(memory tester?) probably operated via a primitive control store;
>quite likely if it was influenced by the Whirlwind design. Now, if you
>have a program in control storage, how's that different from a RISC
>program in ROM??

>Who's on First, anyway?

Whats on second?? ..!!

>Rick.
>smith@sctc.com          arden hills, minnesota

cul 73's de wayne
-- 
   _-_|\    Wayne Amisano          E-Mail: wayne@gbrmpa.gov.au
  /     \   Programmer             Phone:  +61 77 81 8861
  \_.-._/   Great Barrier Reef     Fax:    +61 77 72 6093
       v    Marine Park Authority  Mail:   GPO Box 1379, Townsville QLD 4810