RE: FN-FORUM: OT Earliest programming, was: Null testing problem

date posted 4th January 2006 22:11

Any one beat the original Zebra? A Dutch machine built out of valves. It
was installed at Woolwich Polytechnic (as it was then) and I got a chance to
program it while I was on a school visit. We could only use it between
about 11am and 3pm. At other times the local power supply fluctuated too
much (as businesses opened up and shut down) and it would blow several
valves.

We programmed it in a kind of Assembler language but the op codes were
mostly undecipherable because they were derived from Dutch words.

Basic seems pretty sophisticated by comparison!

I found a picture of it here:
http://piano.dsi.uminho.pt/museuv/1946szebra.html

Andy