Date: Fri, 18 Nov 2016 16:36:12 +0000
From: Mark Priestley <m.priestley@gmail.com>
To: Sigcis <members@sigcis.org>
Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Fwd: CCS News - 2016 Tony Sale Award
winner
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<CAHWAic2n0bpEqicTrpUFibXQM3RWumDZ6zHWn0HA4AJrwG0Cqw@mail.gmail.com>
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Hello list,
That looks like a nice exhibit, but I must admit that the video leaves me
wondering just what insight it gives into programming ENIAC, as opposed to
operating it. It looks like the demonstrator is setting up operations on
the exhibit one at a time, and then executing them by hand. Actual ENIAC
usage, of course, involved setting up a whole series of instructions at
once (including loops, conditional branches etc) and then letting them
execute automatically.
ENIAC "programmers" - more properly, perhaps, the machine's developers, the
scientists who used it, and the operators who helped them - used a variety
of graphical notations to plan these set-ups. An simple example is at
http://markpriestley.net/akg.pdf - this diagram shows exactly how to set
the switches and plug the wires to calculate n, n^2 and n^3, stopping
before an overflow happens. Even with a simulator, this is quite hard to
follow ...
The same goes for other reconstructions, in my experience. For example,
watching the Colossus rebuild working at Bletchley Park is a wonderful
experience, but gives little insight into many aspects of what the machine
was doing, or what it was capable of. Does anyone know of museum exhibits
that successfully convey something about programming, or it is just too
abstract an activity?
Cheers,
Mark