(04-15-2020 02:15 PM)BobVA Wrote:  No gummy wheels there, but branching might get a little tedious :-)

(04-15-2020 03:51 PM)Maximilian Hohmann Wrote:  "If result < 0 continue on page 35 otherwise page 127"

Quote:I read once about a prisoner who had no access to computers writing a BASIC interpreter using paper, pen, and a chalkboard and running some of the BASIC programs that used to be printed in computer magazines on it.

(04-17-2020 01:47 AM)Mark Hardman Wrote:  Video of the calculator macro reader in action

(04-17-2020 01:00 AM)edryer Wrote:  

Quote:I read once about a prisoner who had no access to computers writing a BASIC interpreter using paper, pen, and a chalkboard and running some of the BASIC programs that used to be printed in computer magazines on it.

Would be interesting to know why he was there in the first place ))

(04-16-2020 05:12 PM)Garth Wilson Wrote:  For me, the link just goes to a blank white page.

(04-21-2020 10:00 PM)Jim Horn Wrote:  Back in the late 1970s at one of the Wescon (Western Electronics Convention and Show) events was a presentation by students competing for prizes for innovation. One presented a card reader add-on for the HP-25. Of course, I made sure to attend that! The innovation was a similar concept of having the keyboard rows and columns brought to pins of a device which would accept a classic Hollerith punched card which would be slowly pulled through by manually turning a knob which drove friction wheels to pull the card through. Each column of the card had two holes punched, one each for a row and column of the '25 keyboard which would allow those two pins to touch a conductive strip behind the punched card, thereby electrically "pressing" the corresponding key. It was as fast as the calculator and would allow loading a program into same. Of course, the resulting device was larger and more unwieldy than this one and required a keypunch machine to "program" it. But then again, it predated it by decades.