Path: ...!weretis.net!feeder9.news.weretis.net!panix!.POSTED.panix2.panix.com!panix2.panix.com!not-for-mail From: kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) Newsgroups: comp.misc Subject: Re: Is Programming Obsolete? Date: 13 May 2024 13:10:35 -0000 Organization: Former users of Netcom shell (1989-2000) Lines: 19 Message-ID: References: Injection-Info: reader1.panix.com; posting-host="panix2.panix.com:166.84.1.2"; logging-data="15849"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@panix.com" Bytes: 1536 Bob Eager wrote: > >Indeed. When I was doing my Master's, I saw undergraduates being taught >using a 'paper computer'. 16 words of RAM, 12 bit word. It was a set of >boxes with index cards with contents written on them. Plus a couple of >boxes for accumulator and flags. It was ctually a PDP-8 clone, but only >for simplicity. Bell Labs used to sell a paper card thing called the CARDIAC which was vaguely like this, and the US Army training folks had a thing called TAGSAC which was a paper computer for teaching programming in the days when computers were too expensive to waste on students. But these days you can buy an ST evaluation board that plugs into your PC and has a marvelous 8-bit instruction set. It even has a divide! Take that, 8051. --scott -- "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."