17 Sep
2015
17 Sep
'15
10:51 a.m.
Crispin Rope concentrates on the power of ENIAC and
its usefulness, neither
of which can be argued with, but to me a "computer" without self-modifying
code is a programmable calculator even if it has index registers...
As a total thread-drift, I have in my hand a machine that anyone would class as a
a programmable calculator. It looks like a calcualtor, it has key-per-function operation
(that is, a 'SIN' key, etc). And yet...
Using totally documented instructions you can create a string containing the
text of a program. You can then convert that string _into_ a program. And
execute said program (as a subroutine of the program you are running that
created the string and converted it to a program, in general). If that's not
self-modifying code, I don't know what is...
I refer of course to the excellent HP RPL machines.
-tony