G
Gene E. Bloch
Flightless Bird
On Tue, 3 Aug 2010 22:013 -0500, R. C. White wrote:
> Ken started with big machines
He said he started with the IBM 1401. It was *physically* big - like the
size of two or three washing machines - but your modern Casio wrist watch
probably has more computing power
I don't recall the numbers with anything approaching precision (I started
on the 7090 and never programmed a 1401), but it was something like 64
different opcodes and 2048 bytes of memory. I don't recall the cycle time
(clock speeds were too slow in those days to be given in MHz - and I'm only
exaggerating a little bit when I say that).
My friend KO coded the 1401 directly in machine code (which was actually
BCD characters, IIRC). He amazed me.
--
Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch)
> Ken started with big machines
He said he started with the IBM 1401. It was *physically* big - like the
size of two or three washing machines - but your modern Casio wrist watch
probably has more computing power
I don't recall the numbers with anything approaching precision (I started
on the 7090 and never programmed a 1401), but it was something like 64
different opcodes and 2048 bytes of memory. I don't recall the cycle time
(clock speeds were too slow in those days to be given in MHz - and I'm only
exaggerating a little bit when I say that).
My friend KO coded the 1401 directly in machine code (which was actually
BCD characters, IIRC). He amazed me.
--
Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch)