🚀 go-pugleaf

In misc.survivalism D. P. Roberts <in...@montoya.net> wrote:
> >We all know what he was speaking of, if you want to get into semantics
> >"really ancient computers" have probably blown all of their vacuum tubes
> >by now.  And you'd need a couple of redwoods to make a desk to support
> >one.

> Yes. . .but the really ancient COBOL programs are still around.

> What language did those wire grids with the iron beads use?

Oh, the wire grids and beads (core memory) used mostly FORTRAN and COBOL,
depending on whether it was science/education or business/government.  The
REAL ancient computers with vacuum tubes used mercury delay lines or
retrieval CRT's for storage, and with that whole 512 or 1K words of
volatile memory, they were programmed directly in binary machine language.
Many of them had toggle switch banks for setting the values of the bits
to be programmed.

--Roger

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
   What will people of the future think of us?  Will they say, as
   Roger Williams said of some of the Massachusetts Indians, that
   we were wolves with the minds of men?  That we resigned our humanity?
   They will have the right.                         -- C.P. Snow
------------------------------------------------------------------------------