Advent of Computing

In 1950 Northrup unveiled their MAgnetic Drum DIgital Differential Analyser. The machine is a wild piece of technology; a rendering of an analog computer in digital encoding. But how did we get here? How did a project to guide a missile lead to a mass produced computer? And what does it have to do with suspiciously dry martinis?
Selected Sources:
https://sci-hub.st/10.1109/MAHC.2003.1179869 - 2003 paper on MADDIDA
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EMUL-8 is a fascinating programming language. It's described in just one paper from 1977. It's a mix of features from APL, LISP, ALGOL, and SNOBOL. And, I think, it's a wonderful window into how counterculture and home computing collided.

I mean that both in the specific and the abstract. This episode we are looking at APL, which stands for A Programming Language. APL was developed in the mid 50s, but didn't see a working implementation until 1965. It's a language that truly looks like no others, but has some odd parallels to everything from BASIC to LISP to linear algebra.






Learn APL at: tryapl.org
https://www.jsoftware.com/papers/APL.htm - A Programming Language

Dale Biagio(author of Hello, World!) got in touch with me recently. He said he had a book full of short histories of programming languages. Better still, it has sources! How could I resist! In this episode I sit down with Dale to talk about the intersection of technical and human histories.
You can find more about Hello, World! at Dale's website:
https://helloworldthebook.com/

I've been browsing old compur surveys and trying to build up a comprehensive data set. What I've found is a little surprising: between late 1945 and 1949 only 10 new computers entered service. Once we get to the 50s that number explodes. What's going on here? What caused the gap between the first digital machines and the explosion of computers in the 50s? In this episode I try to answer that question by finding out just what was going on during this digital gap.
Like Advent of Computing? Then check out the after show! Adjunct of Computing is now LIVE: YouTube Spotify Apple Podcasts