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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)
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Bob Eager  <news0009@eager.cx> 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."