[Simh] pdp11 and unix

[Paul Koning]

> On Feb 27, 2016, at 2:36 PM, Bill Cunningham <billcun at suddenlink.net> wrote:
> 
> Well that's certainly before ICs I think that was in the 1950s and it was some early calculators that killed slide rules. What kind of "processor" were they using? I'm not so sure there was real HLL before Adm. Hopper. And no binary by Babbge. Do you have any links or anything from the '40s?

HLL?  I was talking about assembler...  Anyway, I don't believe COBOL was the first HLL, though it certainly was fairly early.

You can find writeups about Harvard Mark 4 in Bitsavers, and presumably other old stuff as well.  My own comment was referring to documents about early Dutch computer work I've been looking at.  For example this one: http://oai.cwi.nl/oai/asset/9603/9603A.pdf, "Principles of electronic computers: course February 1948".  It mentions that, at time of writing, the only functioning electronic computer was ENIAC.  (That may not be entirely accurate, considering possible classified machines, but it's certainly close.)  It describes the key components of a computer, and gives an outline of what an instruction set might look like.  No suggestion that the instruction set in question corresponds to any actual design, though.

Unfortunately it's in Dutch.

	paul