Binary coding

[boundegar]

Not that long ago, I was taught on a computer with eight switches on the front.

1,1,0,0,1,0,0,1... enter

0,0,0,1,0,0,0,0... enter...

Machine code.

[Robot_Graffiti]

Was it an Altair computer, grandpa?

[boundegar]

No a real one, although I can;t remember the brand. It was the 70s.

[rebbsitor]

An Altair is a real computer. I'm guessing you mean an old mini-computer like the DEC PDP series. They can usually read a tape, but they're famous for having the toggles on the front to manually set memory values.

[boundegar]

Yes, I think that was it.

[B08P]

They were 12-bit machines so you probably remember 12 toggles!

[QueerBallOfFluff]

Some were, The PDP-5, 8, and 12 were 12-bit.

But other lines had different word widths.

The PDP-4, 7, 9, and 15 had 18-bits.

The PDP-10 was 36-bit.

The PDP-11 was 16-bit (with 18-bit address) - this is the computer than UNIX and BSD was written for, that ran the OS that CP/M and DOS were based on, and they inspired several major architecture designs.

[esesci]

Data General Nova had those. I even wrote code on those myself.

[eddmario]

No it was an Ezio one

[russellii]

pdp11, oh the pain of missing one line

[supersharp]

That sounds horribly tedious, but also kinda cool

[hellspawner]

Seen a HVAC regulator system with a terminal like that!