From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,d0dadbdee07c6140 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2002-05-25 07:11:20 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!newsfeed.wirehub.nl!iad-peer.news.verio.net!news.verio.net!news.stealth.net!news.stealth.net!news-east.rr.com!chnws02.ne.ipsvc.net!cyclone.ne.ipsvc.net!24.128.8.70!typhoon.ne.ipsvc.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Message-ID: <3CEF9BD9.5030802@attbi.com> From: "Robert I. Eachus" Organization: Eachus Associates User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:0.9.4.1) Gecko/20020314 Netscape6/6.2.2 X-Accept-Language: en,pdf MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Ada a fourth generation language? References: <3ccc2ba7.138192556@news.cis.dfn.de> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Date: Sat, 25 May 2002 14:07:08 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 24.61.239.24 X-Complaints-To: abuse@attbi.com X-Trace: typhoon.ne.ipsvc.net 1022335628 24.61.239.24 (Sat, 25 May 2002 10:07:08 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 25 May 2002 10:07:08 EDT Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:24754 Date: 2002-05-25T14:07:08+00:00 List-Id: Nick Roberts wrote: > It is a fact that the earliest electronic programmable computers were > programmed by arranging pegs in holes in certain circuit boards. > (Programming all 10MB of Internet Explorer would presumably have taken a > long time. :-) I'm curious about which computers you had in mind. The ENIAC used rotary switches for programming, but theoretically patch panels for arithmetic constants. (A patch panel is a board with lots of holes, and you insert wires with plugs on them. Individual patch panels can then be stored and swapped.) The reason I say theoretically is that ENIAC had enough electronic registers that it was more efficient to copy any constants into registers which could be accessed much more quickly. The IBM 403 Accounting Machine, and later models used plugboards. See http://www.columbia.edu/acis/history/407.html for photographs of an IBM 407 and someone programming a plugboard. IBM later introduced a "programming language" RPG, which almost directly mapped to the plugboards but was used on real computers like the IBM System/3. There were early computers that used pegboards not wire plugboards for programming. The only one I remember was the Burroughs E101.