3 ms·
The idea of listening to hardware running a program to tell what it is doing is surprisingly old. On the EDSAC computer[0] a little speaker was connected across
by mnw21cam 10mo ago
The idea of listening to hardware running a program to tell what it is doing is surprisingly old. On the EDSAC computer[0] a little speaker was connected across one of the serial data lines, which allowed the progress of a program to be listened to. Skilled operators could immediately tell when a program had triggered a bug and either gone off into the weeds or entered a tight loop.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EDSAC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EDSAC
- howard941 10mo agoWith the PDP-8E we used to do this with an AM radio.