Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Wilson <leon.winslow@notes.udayton.edu>]

On Mon, 07 Jun 2010 11:24:00 -0400, Richard Harter <cri@tiac.net> wrote:

> On Mon, 07 Jun 2010 06:40:07 -0400, Peter Flass
> <Peter_Flass@Yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> robin wrote:
>>> "Martin Krischik" <krischik@users.sourceforge.net> wrote in message  
>>> news:op.vdv17504z25lew@macpro-eth1.krischik.com...
>>> | Am 06.06.2010, 17:19 Uhr, schrieb J. Clarke <jclarke.usenet@cox.net>:
>>> |
>>> | > On 6/6/2010 12:25 AM, Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz wrote:
>>> |
>>> | > What do you believe to be the difference between machine code and
>>> | > assembler?
>>> |
>>> | 6502 Assembler:
>>> |
>>> | LDA #10
>>> |
>>> | 6502 Machine code:
>>> |
>>> | A9 10
>>> |
>>> | Any more silly questions?
>>>
>>> That assembler was of a much later period than the one under  
>>> discussion,
>>> namely, the 1940s-1950s.
>>>
>>>
>>
>> If you want to talk *really* old assemblers, look at SOAP.  The hardware
>> had no core, only drum memory, and each H/W instruction contained the
>> drum address of the next instruction to be executed.  A big function of
>> the assembler was figuring out where to store the instructions on the
>> drum so that the next instruction was under the R/W head just as the
>> previous finished executing -- based on the instruction timings.  Try
>> doing that by hand for a large program!
>
> It must be time to recall the story of Mel.  I've got a copy on
> my website at http://home.tiac.net/~cri/2001/mel.html though I am
> sure that there must be other copies on the web.
>
>
>
> Richard Harter, cri@tiac.net
> http://home.tiac.net/~cri, http://www.varinoma.com
> Reality is real; words are real too.
> However words are not reality.


Loved your story of Mel.  I worked with a couple of people like that.  We  
called them "bit diddlers" because "real programmers" always worked with  
bits.  None of fancy, dancy oct or hex stuff.

Unfortunantly, like you I had to upgrade one or two of their programs.   
Even worse, at one time I belonged to their fraternity.  It was mentally  
chalanging either way, and a great game to see how good you were.   In  
other words, fun while it lasted.  The arrival of Fortran and Cobol put an  
end to the era of the bit diddler, although they made a small comeback  
with the advent of the first microporcessors.  (Now that I think about it,  
I'll bet that somewhere there is a bit diddler trying to shoehorn a big  
program into the small memmory of some kind of control computer.)
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