3 Oct
2002
3 Oct
'02
1:22 p.m.
Hi,
Hans B Pufal <hansp(a)aconit.org> said:
Jeffrey Sharp wrote:
Indeed, and that was the normal way of indexing arrays on EDSAC (1949).
(I'm just writing some simple test programs for the emulator, so
I know that's the only way to do it!).
--
Cheers,
Stan Barr stanb(a)dial.pipex.com
The future was never like this!
I was thinking of the first machine that
supported indirect addressing in
its instruction set, but we should also count machines where you could
kludge indirect addressing by modifying the machine code before executing
it.
But surely ANY computer (other than Harvard architecture machines which
seaprate code from data) can modify their own program. In that case I do
not hesitatte to nominate the Manchester Baby machine, first operational
program in June 1948. It did not have any hardwired indirect addressing
but it could certainly modify its own program.