I learned programming in 1963 (now that's OLD). My first computer was the IBM 1620. The first desktop, or should I say, desk (the whole thing). No OS. Used punched cards (OOOLLLLDDDD). Had a crippled FORTRAN compiler, assembler, little else, but had a unique variable word-length architecture and did arithmetic by table look-up so could do some funny math. Debugging by turning a dial and seeing what lights were lit (register bits on).
Did some linear algebra with the FORTRAN but that was no fun. I had this thing translating Spanish to English, programmed in assembler. Program had overlaid subroutines (made by making a deck without the boot- loader cards) to handle language-specific processing, i.e. grammar. Had two dictionaries, one with word-endings and one with plain words and word-roots. I stored just enough into the very limited memory for proof of concept. Brute force look-up, hadn't learned of anything better yet. 1963. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/201006201654.07889.d_ba...@012.net.il