Cool discussion! It's the first thing in years that's actually made me feel young.
Peter Baker Sent from my iPad On Sep 12, 2011, at 5:42 PM, Barry MacKichan <barry.mackic...@mackichan.com> wrote: > Ok, I'll contribute to this one. I learned programming on a IBM clone --a > clone of an IBM 1620 at Oregon State University in 1960. > We wrote a few programs and then were told about a fabulous new tool called > SOAP, the symbolic optimum assembly program. No more memorizing the numbers > of machine instructions! The optimization part was that not only would it > assemble your program but it would put each instruction on the right part of > the drum so that it would be under the read head when the previous > instruction had executed. Slick! > > All input was on paper tape. The equivalent of the delete key, as I recall, > was opaque tape that you could stick on the paper tape. > > --Barry MacKichan > > > On Sep 12, 2011, at 2:53 PM, maxwell wrote: > >> On Mon, 12 Sep 2011 21:40:57 +0200, Tobias Schoel >> <liesdieda...@googlemail.com> wrote: >>> Shouldn't real dinosaurs (real as in MTV Real Life) calculate using only >> >>> the Peano Axioms and the unary system? >> >> I believe binary arithmetic was introduced somewhere in the pre-Cambrian. >> This was because when you add two digits, both of which are 1, you have to >> carry into the next column; hence the name, You Carry It, since corrupted >> to Eukaryote. >> >> Mike Maxwell >> >> >> -------------------------------------------------- >> Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: >> http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex > > > > > -------------------------------------------------- > Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: > http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex -------------------------------------------------- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex
