John Backus passes away...

[Sridhar Ayengar]

Jules Richardson wrote:
> Al Kossow wrote:
>>  > I wonder which machine would take the prize for the
>>  > most done with so little?
>>
>> In the 60's, probably the LINC
>>
>> 1 or 2k 12 bit words, LINCtape, typewriter, CRT, and Lab I/O
>>
>> http://www.mit.edu:8001/people/ijs/epl/LINC.html
> 
> I wonder if it's so clear-cut, though. I mean, people have managed to do 
> some pretty impressive stuff with some of the 80's 8 bit "home" machines 
> too - well beyond what anyone ever assumed was possible.
> 
> So there's a temptation to assume that the "winner" would be an older 
> machine (60s or 70s), but it might not be so easy as that... (although I 
> suppose the "rules" should confine things to official hardware 
> configurations only, which perhaps rules out any newer machines that 
> have had things like IDE hard drives added by their owners)

I would have guessed something with plugboards for programming. 
Possibly drum-memory.

Peace...  Sridhar