Edward,
>
> Oh, that takes me right back...My father, who started on vacuum tube
> computers, told me about Autocoder about the time he started teaching me
> Fortran [shudder]. We were both extremely happy when he discovered APL.
>
I have seen a lot of vacuum tub computers, but the first one that I actually
worked on was the 1401 which was fully transistorized with 4 to 8
transistors per circuit board. It had a top speed of 8 ips (125 ms cycle
time). The first systems came with add and subtract, you could do your own
multiply & divide.
The IBM plant manager however was not pleased. It was taking up valuable
floor space that could better be used to build time clocks. That was IBM's
real future.
I learned machine language from the circuit diagrams. I learn Autocoder
form the machine language.
I can remember being festinated with COBOL. Imagine programming in and
English like language.
Carl
