EMACS turns 50
- Programming used to be a very different experience from the one we know today.
- In fact, the first programmers didn’t write code at all; the six women who worked on the ENIAC, one of the world’s first computers, at the University of Pennsylvania in 1946 did it by physically configuring switches, cables, and plugboards.
- A few years later, MIT engineers programmed the Whirlwind by punching code onto paper tape that was then loaded into the computer’s memory—making it among the first “stored-program” machines.
Unverified
- Programming used to be a very different experience from the one we know today.
- In fact, the first programmers didn’t write code at all; the six women who worked on the ENIAC, one of the world’s first computers, at the University of Pennsylvania in 1946 did it by physically configuring switches, cables, and plugboards.
- A few years later, MIT engineers programmed the Whirlwind by punching code onto paper tape that was then loaded into the computer’s memory—making it among the first “stored-program” machines.
Sources: Technologyreview