Intels chips in early days...Quire interesting...

On Wed, 03 Jun 2009 12:26:41 +0930, Chris Burrows wrote:

>>>> But the author doesn't say why it "was most definitely a
>>>> calculator". I don't see what's missing.
>>>
>>> The 'alpha' out of 'alphanumeric' perhaps? As far as I can see it
>>> could only process numeric data.
>>
>> So?  I know of no computers that treat chars as other than special
>> integer values.
> 
> True but irrelevant.
> 
>>They add software to make it convenient.
>>
> 
> Exactly! It is the computer's ability to process that 'convenient software' 
> and communicate with the user with alphanumeric information that 
> differentiates it from a programmable calculator. A calculator accepts 
> numeric data, processes it and returns numeric results.

So do a lot of computers.

> a) What non-numeric information was the DAC-512 able to display to the 
> operator?

Plenty of "real" computers don't have any ability to display *any* data to
the operator. They just receive data from computers and send the results
to computers. Many supercomputer applications simply take arrays of
numbers as input and return arrays of numbers as output, with interfacing
to humans delegated to lesser systems. But I don't recall anyone referring
to Crays et al as "calculators".

> b) How would you define the difference between a programmable calculator and 
> a personal computer?

Personally, I would make the distinction according to whether it can
execute unbounded loops. A conventional calculator either lacks loops
altogether or only uses bounded loops (i.e. iterating over the digits).
This makes them not Turing-complete (e.g. there's no halting problem, as a
bounded loop cannot fail to terminate).

"Nobody" <nobody@nowhere.com> wrote in message 
news:pan.2009.06.03.19.08.32.485000@nowhere.com...
> On Wed, 03 Jun 2009 12:26:41 +0930, Chris Burrows wrote:
>
>>
>>>They add software to make it convenient.
>>
>> Exactly! It is the computer's ability to process that 'convenient 
>> software'
>> and communicate with the user with alphanumeric information that
>> differentiates it from a programmable calculator. A calculator accepts
>> numeric data, processes it and returns numeric results.
>
> So do a lot of computers.
>

Sure. But that is NOT what they are ONLY capable of doing.

>> a) What non-numeric information was the DAC-512 able to display to the
>> operator?
>
> Plenty of "real" computers don't have any ability to display *any* data to
> the operator. They just receive data from computers and send the results
> to computers.

Don't forget arguments are more expensive for a course of ten ;-)

http://www.mindspring.com/~mfpatton/sketch.htm

--
Chris Burrows
CFB Software
Armaide v2.0: ARM Oberon-07 Development System
http://www.cfbsoftware.com/armaide