OT teach me a word

even the old programmers can't do it, I used to work with the guy who was in charge of the building of the first computer and many of the people who worked with him, we moved buildings and the staff common room was build with class walls with a stripe around it that was supposedly the first program they'd put into EDSAC, none of them even recognised it. A younger guy spent ages translating it and found that there was an error in it, but that was the builders not the original programmers. The original programmers programmed in machine code, which gives commands at a really really basic level, then one of the technicians would take that , look up all the binary codes and make the punch card, they probably didn't know what the program meant and the programmers wouldn't know the binary for the program they had written.

Cheers Anne

After I went back to school for my computer science degree, one of my uncles used to say "I just don't understand how a computer works". My response was always, "I don't really understand it all, either, but I know it's really just a bunch of on/off switches." I don't think that satisfied him. :)

Julia >> could you please explain the word 'digital' with today's meaning? I think

My DH's uncle was a pencil collector. He had a framed picture titled "The L.E.A.D. 2.5 Word Processor", describing a pencil's features and with a regular yellow pencil attached. It also had several other models of different lengths or with 2 sharp ends or 2 erasers. I have it hanging by my computer now.

Julia in MN

Asked DH and his response to your "little words and short sentences" request was "At the bottom it is all ones and zeros." followed by a long contemplative silence and: "Digital converts everything into whole numbers and works with those numbers. Think about buying binding by the package,compared to buying fabric. You can't buy half a package of binding but you can buy half a yard, or other fractions of a yard of fabric. Binding by the package is digital, fabric by the fractional yard is analog. If you want more detailed info, I or a lot of other people, can tell you far more than any reasonable human being would ever want to know about it."

Not sure if that exactly answers your question. It does have to do with converting the numbers that the information is translated to into ones and zeros in some manner...... lots of technical stuff....

Pati, in Phx

Polly Esther wrote:

Val, about the people who built "those machines" with all the thimbles full of "donuts on sticks"..... both my uncle and my grandmother had something to do with the early machines, perhaps my aunt too. We have never been exactly sure of what, but after the war they were able to tell others that they had been working on stuff that was partly explained in the newspapers. (Both aunt and uncle were physicists....... Granddad also worked in "secret" stuff down at Fort Huachuca in southern Arizona for many years until shortly before he died in the '70s.)

Pati, in Phx

Val wrote:

Polly, if you have survived a visit with a 3 year old, you will need a few days to recover before you can even think about digital, bling, or blog again! She probably could have explained it all to you.

Sherry Starr

'snipped' in binary is

01010011010011100100100101010000010100000100010101000100

each letter or character is a byte (8 bits) The mathematical calculations of combination of 1s and 0s are endless. Unfortunately it doesn't work like the secret decoder ring :( I am giving you an A+ and 5 gold stars for your ingenuity and creativity in trying to figure out the code......and now you know why all those new coding languages were and created so you could let the computer do the calculations.....after all, it IS just a calculating machine LOL

I'm glad he enjoyed that....I'm surprised there are people still around who remember Space Odyssey!

Val

Thanks for asking this question Polly, now I'm feeling totally brain dead!! Val lost me somewhere around one donut being a bit. 8 a byte hmmm? or was that 4 no that was a nibble. wish I had some in the pantry could do with one with a cup of hot chocolate to sooth my brain. But then just think of all the trans fats in the donuts. Definitely not good for anyone. And as for BBs , well has anyone stood on these little blighters in bare feet? Well I have, curtoesy of DS and his BB gun. It hurts... just like my brain so please excuse all spelling errors.

MY VAL but you're brainy!! Very impressive. You couldn't send some cells digitally to me? Thanks for the explanation anyway. I think I 'sort' of understand now the difference between analog and digital, just don't ask me to explain it back please. I'll copy and send your binary message to his email box for him to ponder later. :D

Elly

"Val" wrote:

my grandad was also involved with one of the early machines, EDSAC 2, he's too young to have been there right from the start, he got a vacation job as a student working on it, which meant being right there with a soldering iron putting the bits together. Names like his are not recorded. The interesting thing is, that he reckons the wrong people get credited, he has enormous respect for the guy in charge, but a lot of people also record him as having the brains, which he definitely does to a certain extent and having been in seminars with him when I was in my early 20s and he's in his 90s, he's still very sharp, but my grandad rates some of the people working under him much more highly. Great projects don't happen without someone pulling it together so even if this guy didn't have the biggest brain, he had the people and project skills, they all deserve recognition!

Here's the wikipedia entry on the guy

and some of the others Cheers Anne

Which is why I bagged the computer career. That was before EEOC. It was the era of the Good 'ol Boys. I was the only woman programmer out of 62 people. I was the supervising programmer of my team of 8 and we were the lead team. I made $600.00 a month less than the lowest paid man on my team. I was paid almost the same as the women who were key punch operators. When I requested to be paid the same as other programming team leaders the answer was.......but you're a woman, these men have families to support.....I was a single mother and had a family to support as well, plus I had at least two or more years of higher education than any of "the boys"......well, you should get married if you can't take care of yourself and child, then you'll probably get pregnant and you won't be able to work anymore, no raise. Back then it was T.S. if you were a woman, not much you could do about the equal work equal pay thing. That's when I quit and for the next 5 years went on to kick the doors open of the Teamster's Union. "Driver" wasn't gender specific on the pay scale.

Val

OOOO -- I'm starting to remember what Dh told me about binary. It would be something like the letter A would be 00000000 and then B would be 00000001 and then C would be 00000010 and D is 00000100 so that each letter has 8 "places" of either a 0 or a 1 and the 1 moves as you move through the 8 places -- or something like that. Once you get to whichever letter would be 10000000, the next letter would be 10000001 and then 10000010, 10000100, 10001000, etc. Is that ***sort of*** how it works? I know that's probably VERY simplistic but if that's kinda close to what really happens then it makes it a bit easier for us non-techno folks to understand -- sort of :-). Thanks for all of the gold stars -- gotta remember that I have been married to an enginerd for upwards of 36 years and some of the stuff he knows has sort of rubbed off on MOI -- LOLOL! CiaoMeow >^;;^<

PAX, Tia Mary >^;;^< (RCTQ Queen of Kitties) Angels can't show their wings on earth but nothing was ever said about their whiskers! Visit my Photo albums at

Val, I went on to bust the sterotypes of many male-dominated fields of the time. I was the first female box-boy in a supermarket chain in our tri-county area, at age 16. First female Standbred racehorse trainer licensed by USTA [US Trotting Association]. First female to work the Coker Division in a Chevron Oil Refinery. First female and non-sworn person to be petitioned to join a police SWAT team in this tri-county area.

Yep, I ruffled a lot of feathers, many male egos, and pround to be a red-headed rablle rouser!

My favorite quote? "Labels? Labels are for files. Labels are are for clothes. Labels are not for people."

G> "Ginger in CA" wrote in

messagenews: snipped-for-privacy@o3g2000hsb.googlegroups.com...

~ ;) ~

You done grasped the concept, girl! Your BBs have ceased to roll *applause* Tell hubby I said you deserve a nice dinner out......some place with cloth napkins.....right after an LQS spree.

Val

Almost but not quite. You add one for each increment by changing the last digit. If it is zero, you change it to one and you are done. If it is one, you change it to zero and then go to the next digit to the left. If it is zero, you change it to one, and you're done. If it is one, you repeat the above steps until you finally hit a zero that you can change to a one. So if you start with 10000000, the sequence would be 10000001,

10000010, 10000011, 10000100, 1000101, 1000110, 1000111, 1001000, etc. Of course those binary numbers actually represent something else in computers that use 8-bit ASCII encoding (like most computers except those made by IBM). There are 255 different combinations in 8 bits, so there are 255 different characters that can be represented. Upper case letters are have a different code than lower case ones. Upper case A is actually 01000001 binary (decimal 65) and lower case a is represented by 01100001 (decimal 97). There is a table of the ASCII codes at The table shows the decimal equivalent. I happen to have a calculator that converts between decimal (base 10), binary (base 2), octal (base 8), and hexadecimal (base 16) leftover from my days as a programmer; it was useful in reading hexadecimal dumps. There is also a conversion table at

Julia in MN

I didn't get into the computer stuff until I was in my upper 30's (in the early '80's. When I went back to college in 1981, I had the impression that my CompSci classes were pretty well balanced gender-wise. Unfortunately, that is not the case anymore. I heard a news story today concerning the fact that too many women are not considering CompSci and the field is once again becoming male-dominated.

Julia in MN

Good grief, do you think this is a "red headed thing"?

You were the box boy!.....I was the pump boy at the local Texaco station, when my GFs were babysitting.....when you could still say fill-er up and get your windows washed and oil checked. The computer career was covered, there were a few firsts as well. Member of the only all female crewed halibut fishing boat in Alaska First woman to get into the heavy construction division of the Teamsters....as an actual "teamster" driver First woman in our state to drive a truck or operate heavy equipment for any municipality. First woman to win 1st place at the Dump Truck Rodeo and ONLY person to win

4 years in a row. The record still stand ;)

Oh Ginger, too bad we live so far apart, I'm sure we could swap some great stories and you'd have a ball getting together with our group of Old Broads for spur of the moment lunches. The name came about when a woman I've know

30 years (she was 1st woman lineman for the power co,), looked around the table and says....."Who the hell are all these old broads, I thought I was gonna party with a bunch of take-no-prisoners foxes!" These women were some of "the firsts" or soon following, around here breaking into so may of the non traditional fields. We keep forgetting we are *old* now, that's why have had lunch together for the past quite a few years instead of dinners that used to turn into partying till dawn.....these spunky, fearless, take no guff women really hate driving after dark now, and most can't stay awake much past 10pm! LOL

Val

An excellent explanation!

When I was in college my folks started working part time at the dog track.... behind the line. My younger siblings worked at the snack bars there too. I ended up working as a "money runner". First girl to run money. At first I only ran change for the cashiers, then one night they needed a change runner for the sellers. I was told that "girls couldn't really handle the pace of the job.." Well, I filled in and got so many compliments that the sellers requested me back. The boys were a bit upset that I was showing them up. Raised the bar on what was expected from them too. and opened the job to other girls. (Since it was behind the lines, not dealing directly with the customers could do it under age 21, had to be 21 to work the line direct with customers. While I was working with the cashiers I would make enough in tips from the cashiers to pretty much live on for the week. The boys were astonished when they realized that too. They never made tips like that from the same cashiers. My sister and I both got married in the midst of working the track. It made the track company newsletter. My husband (now ex) used to tell people that I worked nights, in South Tucson, did a lot of walking and carried a lot of change. My "day job" for a while was doing alterations in the JCPenney's men's wear department. He described my job as "altering men for Penney's."

Pati,in Phx.

Val wrote:

just to add to the confusion.. an abacus is digital.. :o) so, basically, it goes back to digit = finger...