[Simh] pdp11 and unix

[Johnny Billquist]

On 2016-02-27 20:57, Paul Koning wrote:
>
>> On Feb 27, 2016, at 2:49 PM, Bill Cunningham <billcun at suddenlink.net> wrote:
>>
>> Thanks much. Yes I know you were speaking of assembly. I was just considering history. I've always heard binary was first. What that might mean IDK. And there was no evidence presented for that.
>
> It may just be a case of people not familiar with early documents, extrapolating from the fact that early programming was in machine language and many early machines were binary.  In other words, overlooking the fact that the use of octal or even decimal would be a pretty natural choice even right at the beginning.

Yes. In fact, from what I remember, decimal was used on many early 
computers. And you didn't really program them they way we think now. You 
didn't necessarily even have memory in the way we think now. Programming 
was done by connecting wires on large boards similar to telephone switches.

Octal is a natural extension once you go binary. But really early on, 
people obviously was thinking decimal, and thus the computers were too.

	Johnny

-- 
Johnny Billquist                  || "I'm on a bus
                                   ||  on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt at softjar.se             ||  Reading murder books
pdp is alive!                     ||  tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol