On 11/26/2012 12:08 PM, Lindy Mayfield wrote:
Granted a punch card in no matter what language would most likely be 80 bytes long.
Except when it's 96?
but what about the very first language, assembler? Mnemonics would most likely hide a multitude of grammatical elements, say, for example, the one that comes to mind most often for me (other than SQL), which is COBOL. Her language needs lots of verbs and prepositions. And Ms. Hopper's language was really just one step ahead of assembler.
The "first" language depends heavily on your definition of language. IBM's early users on the 700 series coded machine instructions, and manually assigned storage locations, something I would not call a language, but transcription. Assemblers on other machines were only marginally better. And not considering entering programs with front-panel switches, the first effort on the IBMs was ForTran, which compiled to machine language, rather than assembler as later version did. Admiral Hopper's CoBOL existed in simpler form by 1952, but didn't become available on IBM machines until 1959. And IBM machines, the assembler was an afterthought developed by SHARE members (as S.O.S.), who pressured IBM, resulting in FAP (ForTran Assembler Program), and later MAP for ForTran IV.
I just cannot help feeling that somewhere along the way languages similar as English in some similar as English way makes some things easier in computer stuff. Cool people were talking about this and for me it was fun.
English has the peculiarity that it that it is comprehensible without articles (e.g., man walks dog); also it lost most gender-based attributes. I wonder how much that is due to immigrants who never learned the formal language?
Gerhard Postpischil Bradford, Vermont ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
