Timeline for First fictional programming language in sci-fi or fantasy?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
23 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Jul 9, 2020 at 6:40 | comment | added | Mark Morgan Lloyd | @JdeBP I can assure you that I find the EDSAC connection interesting. I've worked with far more people associated with the early Manchester (or various American) computers than the Cambridge ones. | |
| Jul 8, 2020 at 14:16 | comment | added | JdeBP | Then you haven't read the character codes section, as I said to read. Or you could read one of Fred Hoyle's biographies, or even J. M. Wheeler's 1992 IEEE paper. The fact that the computer in the novel is EDSAC, and its description is accurate, is not a secret nor a recent discovery by me. (-: | |
| Jul 8, 2020 at 9:33 | comment | added | AncientSwordRage♦ | @JdeBP I'm not certain. It looks the same, but I don't see a reference to ⊖ in either link. I need to give it some thought | |
| Jul 6, 2020 at 10:36 | comment | added | JdeBP | The "special character" is theta. Read the character codes section of what I pointed to. | |
| Jul 6, 2020 at 10:30 | comment | added | Mark Morgan Lloyd | I'll bite :-) Is that demonstrably EDSAC code, including the special character? | |
| Jul 6, 2020 at 10:10 | comment | added | JdeBP | This is not fictional. The novel describes the real Cambridge Mathematical Laboratory, which indeed was in a building that used to be the Anatomy School as the novel says. The computer is EDSAC, which was indeed programmed via paper tape, and that is what its programming language looks like. cl.cam.ac.uk/events/EDSAC99/history.html cl.cam.ac.uk/events/EDSAC99/simulators/echo/flat.html | |
| Jul 5, 2020 at 15:38 | comment | added | John Doty | It looks to me like the sort of mnemonic notation that evolved into assembly language. I'd guess that Sir Fred cribbed it from some real code. The rest of his description of the process is a very realistic depiction of mid-50's computing. The Adams-Leverrier method is a real thing. The intermediate results printed from the output tape are a bit hard to read because they're formatted to be used as input to another program. The "valves" (or vacuum tubes, in different dialect) keep the computer room cozy in January. | |
| Jul 5, 2020 at 14:27 | comment | added | Mark Morgan Lloyd | It wouldn't have been hex, which was rarely used in those days. However on reflection it's not entirely unlike some of the coding used for e.g. early IBM computers derived from unit record machines (punched cards etc.) where the programmer was expected to know that a character or number in a specific field had some specific effect. Again on reflection, ⊖ looks like a "nothing in this field" indicator, rather than some sort of symbolic operator. I plead that I was working entirely from memory... | |
| Jul 5, 2020 at 13:48 | comment | added | Owen Reynolds | Those 4 lines do look as if someone was trying to write hexadecimal assembly without understanding. In other words, looking "made up" may be an accident. That part may intend to educate on real computer programming, esp. since he explains the real way paper tape worked. | |
| S Jul 5, 2020 at 10:44 | history | suggested | ikegami | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
Removed stray duplicate text
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| Jul 5, 2020 at 10:40 | comment | added | Mark Morgan Lloyd | It's interesting that early British computers tended towards paper tape, while American ones tended towards punched cards. I remember a "golden age" story where a spaceship was being controlled by punched cards, but there was no indication that these were any form of program... discussion elsewhere some while ago suggested that they were more likely precomputed navigation solutions. | |
| Jul 5, 2020 at 10:37 | comment | added | Mark Morgan Lloyd | Many thanks to everybody who has commented. My own copy of the book is inaccessible for "interesting" reasons, and I couldn't find a scanned (as distinct from an OCRed) copy online. | |
| Jul 5, 2020 at 10:35 | review | Suggested edits | |||
| S Jul 5, 2020 at 10:44 | |||||
| Jul 5, 2020 at 9:51 | history | edited | James K | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
added 426 characters in body
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| Jul 5, 2020 at 5:59 | comment | added | Dewi Morgan | This answer seems currently the earliest, and would arguably be the best if the two quotes by @JohnDoty were to be edited in. | |
| Jul 5, 2020 at 1:42 | comment | added | John Doty | @AncientSwordRage It is described as "a sample of the code by which the computer was instructed as to how it should perform its calculations and operations". | |
| Jul 5, 2020 at 0:59 | comment | added | AncientSwordRage♦ | @johndoty is that input to a program or code? | |
| Jul 4, 2020 at 21:23 | comment | added | John Doty | The code, on page 32 of my paperback copy, is five lines: " T Z", "0 A 23 ⊖", "1 U 11 ⊖", "2 A 2 F", "3 U 13 ⊖". | |
| Jul 4, 2020 at 13:07 | history | edited | Mark Morgan Lloyd | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
s/entirely/largely/ after finding a partial scan/OCR.
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| Jul 4, 2020 at 12:57 | comment | added | AncientSwordRage♦ | Google books seems to partially back this up! books.google.co.uk/… | |
| Jul 4, 2020 at 12:51 | history | edited | TheLethalCarrot♦ | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
deleted 134 characters in body
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| Jul 4, 2020 at 12:50 | review | First posts | |||
| Jul 4, 2020 at 12:51 | |||||
| Jul 4, 2020 at 12:49 | history | answered | Mark Morgan Lloyd | CC BY-SA 4.0 |