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Another computing history story from Sweden: Once when I was young (in the 80s) I found a roll of paper with punched holes in them in our family's home. It tur

by tpmx 7y ago

Another computing history story from Sweden: Once when I was young (in the 80s) I found a roll of paper with punched holes in them in our family's home. It turned out that my dad had taken a course in "automatic data management" while studying economics at Lund University, Sweden some time around 1963 or so. A course assignment had been to create a few programs in ALGOL. (I got that part because he had kept the course book.) I spent so much time trying to decode this roll of punched tape. My dad wasn't of much help. He didn't really understand why I was so excited about this. Eventually I managed to decode the roll of paper, probably after getting some kind of character set guide; I don't really remember. I wish I still had this tape of punched paper... I do remember it was really exciting to write out the ALGOL program in clear text as I painstaikingly decoded the punched tape. I was that kid who was really into computing, but so starved of input, in the middle of nowhere. I think his exercises were run on: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BESK https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BESK "BESK (Binär Elektronisk SekvensKalkylator, Swedish for "Binary Electronic Sequence Calculator") was Sweden's first electronic computer, using vacuum tubes instead of relays. It was developed by Matematikmaskinnämnden (Swedish Board for Computing Machinery) and for a short time it was the fastest computer in the world. The computer was completed in 1953 and in use until 1966." or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMIL_(computer) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMIL_(computer)

pacaro 7y ago
I did the same with my mum's stacks of paper tape PL/I programs. At one point I tried to build an automated reader that would interface with my BBC B, but that took me longer than transcribing by hand did. I remember being surprised at the time just how quickly I learned to read papertape, just having the tape in my left hand with my thumb at the current position and writing the character with my right hand, shimmy the tape, next character
- tpmx 7y ago
  Neat! I was going through this during a few years after I had just gotten a handed down ZX81 from a relative some time around 1984, at the age of 7 or so. I still remember that this relative sold the computer to my parents for 400 SEK (~$40). Pretty good "investment" in my career, I've gotta say. (They also, while not being super well paid as municipal workers also sprung for two more computers for me - one 8086 PC in ~89 and one 80486 PC in ~93. So thankful. These things were so expensive back then, probably at least 1.5x a monthly salary after taxes.)

by tpmx 7y ago

pacaro 7y ago

I did the same with my mum's stacks of paper tape PL/I programs. At one point I tried to build an automated reader that would interface with my BBC B, but that took me longer than transcribing by hand did. I remember being surprised at the time just how quickly I learned to read papertape, just having the tape in my left hand with my thumb at the current position and writing the character with my right hand, shimmy the tape, next character

tpmx 7y ago
Neat! I was going through this during a few years after I had just gotten a handed down ZX81 from a relative some time around 1984, at the age of 7 or so. I still remember that this relative sold the computer to my parents for 400 SEK (~$40). Pretty good "investment" in my career, I've gotta say. (They also, while not being super well paid as municipal workers also sprung for two more computers for me - one 8086 PC in ~89 and one 80486 PC in ~93. So thankful. These things were so expensive back then, probably at least 1.5x a monthly salary after taxes.)