On Tuesday 16 May 2006 22:41, Alan Gauld wrote: > > Heh, you and me both. I cut my teeth on IBM System/370 > > assembler. Last > > time I had a job where I actually did programming as part of it, > > it was > > System/390 machine code. That's right, machine code, not > > assembler; I'd > > directly type my hexadecimal programs into low storage at the > > operator's > > console. > > Hah, if you haven't bootstrapped a VAX using the toggle switches on > the front panel you ain't a real progammer ;-) > > Actually one of our local Universities still starts their computer > science > courses by teaching students how to do that, before moving them > onto machine code, assembler, C and finally Java(*). It's like an > historical tour > of computing/programming. The machine code is done on little hex > keypads with pocket calculator style printout rools! Its only when > they > get to C that they get to use a PC! > > (*) Actually they get to choose from several languages in their 4th > (final) > year, including Lisp and Prolog(both), Haskell and PL/SQL... > They consistently produce very good graduates, so it seems to work. > > Alan G
You chaps are making me nostalgic; days of the 8080A/Z80/F8/6800 when I built my first computer. In those days 2K of memory was considered large for a personal computer. Stan. _______________________________________________ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
