Re: [gentoo-user] the origins of Unix

[Alan McKinnon]

Apparently, though unproven, at 17:18 on Friday 26 November 2010, Peter 
Humphrey did opine thusly:

> On Friday 26 November 2010 14:32:58 Alan McKinnon wrote:
> > One could ask the question "where did the first assembler come from?"
> >
> > Just as the first OSes and compilers were written in assembler to
> > bootstrap C, so the first assemblers were written in hex codes to
> > bootstrap the assembler. But hex code editors ran software, so where
> > did the first hex code input gadget come from?
> >
> > And the answer to that is that it was written in binary. Yes that's
> > right - a panel with 16 toggle switches and a few pushbuttons. Those
> > didn't require software as everything was implemented in hardware.
>
> Except that in my case it was 24 switches, not 16 (this was a dedicated
> process-control computer for nuclear-powered ships and power stations,
> 35 years ago). And I sometimes had to make individual holes in the paper
> tape to "write" or change the code.


Ah, you were fortunate to work on the big boys. I only had the little ones 
around.

My first job as an adult was ancient Burroughs banking terminals that loaded 
software with the same paper tape, I remember those days well. I never want to 
go back to those days either :-)


-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com