Questions tagged [history]
History of computers, digital electronics, hardware manufacturers and software developers.
696
questions
26
votes
3answers
3k views
Odyssey game console: what's the deal with "English Control"?
I've just read about the original Magnavox Odyssey console. Interesting story. But what I'm wondering about are the game controllers, and in particular the knob labeled as "English". This ...
2
votes
1answer
399 views
Were any 680x0 features specifically requested by a customer?
The Motorola 680x0 processor family was used in a variety of systems, including Apple Macintosh, Atari ST, Commodore Amiga, Sharp X68000, and Sinclair QL systems. Had any of these customers wanted a ...
8
votes
1answer
276 views
How did the HP 9100 use base 14?
Wikipedia's page on numeral systems claims:
14 Tetradecimal
Programming for the HP 9100A/B calculator and image processing applications; pound and stone
Exactly how did the HP 9100A/B use base 14? ...
15
votes
4answers
6k views
What is the source of the Apple logo?
What is the source of the Apple logo? I heard that it was a reference to Alan Turing, who died of cyanide poisoning after eating an apple.
18
votes
3answers
5k views
Which language had the first scanf?
As a companion to the question "What was the first programming language to have 'printf'?", which language had the first scanf?
It doesn't have to be literally called scanf, but I am looking ...
25
votes
3answers
7k views
In what ways was the Soviet STRELA computer "designed to function during a nuclear winter"? Or at least parts of it?
From Strela computer:
Strela computer (Russian: ЭВМ Стрела, arrow) was the first mainframe computer manufactured serially in the Soviet Union, beginning in 1953.
This first-generation computer had ...
12
votes
2answers
1k views
Transition from static to dynamic shared libraries
A static library, also known as an archive, is one intended to be statically linked. Originally, only static libraries existed. Static linking must be performed when any modules are recompiled. (From ...
44
votes
3answers
5k views
How did varargs in C develop?
C has a feature for variadic functions, my understanding is this feature was originally a hack, relying on the simple stack-based parameter passing used by early C implementations and that some time ...
10
votes
1answer
255 views
What sort of intermediate representation did the first Fortran compiler use?
Proebsting's Law asserts that improvements to compiler technology double the performance of typical programs every 18 years, but even granted that this is somewhat tongue-in-cheek, it's not really ...
11
votes
1answer
1k views
What computer programs did Grace Hopper work on during World War II?
Admiral Grace Hopper was a computer pioneer. She wrote the first linker and one of the first compilers; was a proponent of human-readable computer languages, machine-independence of languages, and ...
39
votes
11answers
6k views
What's the origin of terminating strings by setting the high bit of the last character?
I was looking at a hex dump of the ROM BASIC from the original IBM PC and found some byte strings like this (ASCII dump is on the right):
50 52 49 4e d4 9d 4c 49 53 d4 9e 50 4f d3 1b 45 PRIN..LIS.....
15
votes
1answer
2k views
What was the first programming language to use `+` for string concatenation?
Many reasonably modern programming languages (Java, Python, C++, Ruby) use + to represent string concatenation. "A" + "B" is the string "AB".
Languages with a more ...
7
votes
2answers
1k views
What are the "other crontabs" that /etc/crontab refer to? [closed]
The /etc/crontab file on ubuntu has a header that reads:
# /etc/crontab: system-wide crontab
# Unlike any other crontab you don't have to run the `crontab'
# command to install the new version when ...
20
votes
6answers
5k views
Why did some video games apparently use "interlaced" video modes?
I was under the impression that "interlaced" video modes was only a thing for remote television content because it saved bandwidth to only send 50% of the data to the homes, so you could fit ...
3
votes
1answer
218 views
Why were procedure parameter specifications optional in the ALGOL 60 Revised Report?
In Algol 60 procedure declarations, the 'specification' part was optional for by-name parameters. The specification is what gives (loosely speaking) the type of parameter - whether it's real, integer,...
16
votes
4answers
3k views
Why does Pascal have numeric labels?
Pascal was intended, in part, to be a simple language to implement. Some of the design decisions reflecting this are
Declarations/definitions must be given in a strict order (labels, constants, types,...
5
votes
0answers
222 views
What was the first device to "beep" in lieu of tactile feedback to button presses?
I'm splitting this question off of When was beeping invented, in a user interface sense? because I think it's more answerable on its own and I suspect likely to still be computing-related.
At some ...
5
votes
2answers
416 views
When was beeping invented, in a user interface sense?
UPDATE: thanks all, lots of good discussion but I think this question is a bit too vague to be answerable. I'm casting my own close vote against it and will re-ask a more specific one.
Specifically I ...
-6
votes
4answers
339 views
Is UTF-8 responsible for a lot of the cpu-needed bloat in the last ten to fifteen years? [closed]
Some say UTF-8 was the best solution.
The price you pay is that it basically makes all parsing optimizations that rely on a fixed relationship of byte offset to character position unusable.
Compilers, ...
30
votes
3answers
10k views
Why do some people say PHP was "Pretty Home Page"? Was it once PHP's real name?
"Pretty Home Page" is not found in official PHP history. But I saw several people call PHP that way on the internet, and even in some books, teaching & publications:
An Experimental ...
36
votes
3answers
3k views
Why does make only accept tab-indentation?
The syntax for Makefiles requires that indented lines start with a tab, and not a space. So far as I can tell, this has been the case even for very early implementations of make. But even modern-day ...
3
votes
2answers
273 views
Did SVN copy from CVS the feature of allowing each sub-folder to be at a different revision?
SVN allows each sub-folder in a working directory to be at a different revision. SVN used to put a folder (".svn") for metadata into each sub-folder, just like CVS did.
I wonder if SVN also ...
42
votes
5answers
8k views
Why didn't C++ specify filename extensions?
Apparently even today there is no single "official" standard for C++ file extensions. There are just common conventions.
To me this stands out as an anomaly... file extensions are heavily ...
11
votes
3answers
2k views
What was the first programming language, other than Lisp, to have “short-circuiting” Boolean expressions?
(This question is, of course, another thrilling installment of “The history of expression evaluation”; see the previous episodes here and here.)
In many programming languages, the Boolean operators ∧ ...
56
votes
4answers
11k views
Why were single quotes ('…') chosen for characters, and double quotes ("…") for strings?
In C, '' is used to denote a character, while "" is used to denote a string. Why was this syntax chosen?
I tried to research this using Wikipedia’s Timeline of Programming Languages along ...
33
votes
3answers
5k views
What was the first programming language to support “operator chaining”?
The Python language has a neat feature: An expression like x < y <= z is interpreted, according to mathematical convention, as equivalent to x < y and y <= z. Operands are evaluated only ...
7
votes
1answer
983 views
Is it true that "do ... done" blocks in Bash do not end with "od" because od existed before Bash/Bourne?
It's written in the Wikipedia page about od that:
Since it predates the Bourne shell, its existence causes an inconsistency in the do loop syntax. Other loops and logical blocks are opened by the ...
13
votes
4answers
603 views
Did vacuum-tube computers ever reach a physical limit to their speed?
Grace Hopper famously used 30 cm pieces of wire as a teaching aid to show how far signals can travel in one nanosecond. Indeed, the speed of light has become a limitation for many computers. The ...
10
votes
2answers
1k views
Were there any NMOS (or PMOS) processors that could tolerate a stopped clock?
Early microprocessors often used NMOS or PMOS transistor technology (see this question for their use in early Intel chips). Techniques such as implementing registers with dynamic memory cells (...
8
votes
1answer
320 views
Who called it "microchip" first?
We all know how Kilby at TI and Noyce at Fairchild invented the integrated circuit. But who called it microchip? Chip?
105
votes
7answers
24k views
Why was `!` chosen for negation?
It seems that the use of the exclamation mark ! to denote negation started with the C programming language (as far as I can tell from my Google research). Nowhere though is mentioned who and why chose ...
11
votes
2answers
602 views
What was the first programming system to place no limitations on the length of identifiers?
Historically, interpreters and compilers have limited the length of identifiers. For example, FORTRAN I and II considered only six characters to be significant, and LISP 1.5 forbid symbol names to ...
11
votes
1answer
443 views
What was special about "Vulcan" - the CP/M database program?
The Vulcan DBMS for CP/M micros was originally developed in 8080 assembly language by a contractor working for Jet Propulsion Lab, based on an earlier JPL mainframe program. This code went on to be ...
13
votes
0answers
350 views
When and where was the ‘dotted sequence of integers’ version numbering scheme invented?
Probably the most widespread software version numbering scheme in use today takes the form of a dotted sequence of integers. Variants of this scheme usually share the following characteristics:
...
7
votes
1answer
474 views
Did the original Japanese Tamagotchi device really die *completely* (forever) if the digital pet died? [closed]
Ever since 1997, I've had this "factoid" in my head that the original release of Tamagotchi in Japan had no "reset" feature, and you could not remove the batteries to reset it ...
9
votes
1answer
626 views
What was the first compiler/interpreter/assembler to indicate problematic columns in diagnostic messages?
These days, most compilers and interpreters seem to provide the following in diagnostics:
A description of the problem
The name of the source file
A line number
A relevant position within the line
...
6
votes
0answers
190 views
Was there another dialect of Pascal with this range checking feature?
I've decompiled yet another Pascal compiler for the BESM-6.
While it does not implement the full language (for example, packed records and arrays are not implemented, helper routines SEL and INS are ...
12
votes
6answers
631 views
Are there any primary sources for the “passing constant by reference” behavior in old Fortran compilers?
Occasionally I have heard references to a peculiarity of certain (old) Fortran compilers, with regards to subprogram argument passing. Here is an example, from an answer to a Stack Overflow question:
...
12
votes
2answers
534 views
According to Steve Jobs in 1981, what computer privacy issue was "very very hot in the media" at that time?
In an 1981 interview with Steve Jobs, he says the following:
There is a common conception that people have of computers which is
more along the lines of "1984"; very large, very centralized
...
10
votes
2answers
802 views
How widely used were C1 control codes?
As ASCII is a 7-bit code set, and ISO 646 cannot satisfy needs of many languages, variable-length ISO 2022/EUC was developed, which introduced C1 control codes.
However, C1 have hardly left any ...
44
votes
7answers
7k views
Who invented the clipboard?
Just as the wheel, the clipboard on a computer is indeed a very useful invention!
Who came up with such bright idea?
Additionally, did it exist on non-graphical environments as well ?
34
votes
8answers
6k views
Why were relays prevalent in early 1940s computers when vacuum tubes were also available?
Many of of the computers built in the 1940s used relays for logic (see here and here):
Bell Labs Model I, 1940
Bletchley Park Bombe, 1940
Zuse Z2, 1940
Zuse Z3, 1941
Bell Labs Model II, 1943
Bell ...
7
votes
4answers
659 views
Have there been any studies comparing the reliability of relay versus vacuum tube computers?
Computers of the first half of the 20th century generally used relays or vacuum tubes as their logic elements. Each of these components has there own methods of failure, but relays and tubes have a ...
9
votes
1answer
495 views
Which pre-ANSI C compilers allowed a conditional expression as Lvalue?
Soon after learning the C language in the late 80s, before an ANSI C compiler was available on the machines I was using, it occurred to me to check if the following compiles
int a, b, c;
foo() {
(...
3
votes
3answers
328 views
What happened to Spatial Freedom and the Astroid controller?
I've been doing some research into 3D mice. Pretty much the only game in town is the space mouse from 3Dconnexion.
In doing this I discovered that its original designer John Hilton left after the ...
1
vote
2answers
160 views
How many kinds of mass-producible ROM is avaliable before 1970? [duplicate]
Back in the days before mask ROM (when invented?) we got core rope memories, or Little Old Ladies memories, which required lots of human labor to build.
Were there any kinds of ROMs which were ...
11
votes
3answers
1k views
What is the story behind 'goto' vs 'go' 'to' in ALGOL-60?
Preamble
As Algol-60 had no reserved words, the language keywords had to be specially marked, e.g. prefixed with an underscore with a trailing space or semicolon (_begin _integer i;i:=42_end), or ...
5
votes
3answers
675 views
Performance characteristics of the DEC Type 30 graphical display
The DEC Type 30 was an early vector graphics display, that was used for an astonishingly wide range of applications for the 1960s. It used a 16-inch circular CRT with high persistence phosphor ...
5
votes
1answer
824 views
Looking for the source code of a sophisticated Pascal pretty-printing program
I'm trying to find a 70s or very early 80s source code of a Pascal pretty-printing program which is more advanced than the version mentioned on the Prettyprint wiki page which is undated and somewhat ...
18
votes
2answers
4k views
Did any notable product use Intel's first RAM?
The 3101 SRAM was Intel's first product. At $99.50 for 64 bits, it had enough memory to store the characters expensiv. (Sorry, the final e costs extra.) Is there a record of any product using it?