Date: Sun, 14 Feb 1999 17:09:29 -0500 From: "Steve Friedrich" <SteveFriedrich@Hot-Shot.com> To: "freebsd-newbies@FreeBSD.ORG" <freebsd-newbies@FreeBSD.ORG>, "root@isis.dynip.com" <root@isis.dynip.com> Subject: Re: Very Strange Question Message-ID: <199902142224.RAA05460@laker.net>
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On Mon, 15 Feb 1999 00:03:15 +0300 (AST), root@isis.dynip.com wrote: >Ok, we all know that famous debate about who came first, the chicken or >the egg, on a similar scale, now you compile any c program with a >compiler, right , like cc, so as to say, cc compiler itself is a >program, so how it was first compiled, something like MS debug under >dos, or what. I mean the FIRST ever compiler generated, how it was >compiled into an exceutable ? Actually, this may be outside of the charter, since it's not freebsd related... In the beginning... ...there were no compilers or assemblers. There were "maintenance" panels consisting of pushbutton switches with neon lamps, allowing you to manually set/clear bits in a register. Entering a machine language program into main memory via this maintenance panel is referred to as "fat-fingering in" a program. Of course, this was never intended to be a viable way to enter programs, so punch cards were invented, and paper tapes (mylar tape was later and much superior to paper). Soon, a bare-bones assembler would be written in machine language. Much later would come compilers. I'd be willing to bet, the first compiler was Fortran. Later, Grace Hopper and associates would invent COBOL. Hope this whets your appetite... Steve Friedrich Viva la FreeBSD!! Unix systems measure "uptime" in years, Winblows measures it in minutes. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-newbies" in the body of the message
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