release dates of early microcomputer operating systems, incl. Intel ISIS

Noel Chiappa jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu
Tue Sep 15 06:57:40 CDT 2015


    > From: Dave G4UGM

    > although ENIAC first ran a program it was stored as acoustic waves

I don't think ENIAC used acoustic delay storage? Perhaps what you're thinking
of is that in the original ENIAC usage, there was no 'program' as we now
think of that term; the machine had to be configured (via connecting up
computing units with cables) for each separate problem, i.e. more
'configurable' than 'programmable' (at least in the Turing machine sense).
Hence the debate over whether it or the Baby was the first 'computer'.

	Noel


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