On 9/23/2015 1:23 AM, Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 09/22/2015 09:06 PM, Jay Jaeger wrote: > >> That is just because they are so old that, aside from collectors or >> those interested in a particular old machine, nobody ever *bothered*. >> By the time C came along, those machines were well on their way to their >> eventual demise. >> >> I am 100% certain, for example, that it would be possible to come up >> with a C compiler for a 40K IBM 1410, which is in the set you describe. >> But even I, as one of the few denizens that are "into" that particular >> machine, would not bother with a C compiler for it. > > Look, I can probably implement a C compiler (or FORTRAN or GPSS or > JOVIAL or...) in Brainf*ck. But a 1401 C would very likely be > ill-suited to solving numeric problems compared to FORTRAN on the same > platform. >
Because ??? (As far as that goes, just about *anything* would be ill-suited to solving numeric problems on a 1401 (or a 1410 for that matter - that wasn't a typo). The *machines* just weren't well suited for it, with or without the floating point accelerator. If you wanted that, you got a 7000 series machine).
