Dinosaur
Joined 24 August 2022
→First Machine Code
Line 38:
"I suppose it won't work." "Yes it will!" - this time, double milkshakes.
Later on, I modified my interpreter to replace the Fortran code that loaded and decoded the opcode by certain nonsense statements, then, once the compiler had produced the machine code card deck, replaced the card bearing the rubbish code with one containing choice IBM1620 machine code operations (of just the same size) that performed those critical steps much faster. The payoff was an advance from about five to fifteen AMI operations a second. A fellow the year ahead of me had done likewise, and his interpreter ran at thirty steps a second. Thus began early a relaxed attitude to code twiddling and disdain for those who would prevent it.
Over the Christmas holidays I gained money instead of milkshakes: employed by the computer centre to write a data-checking system in Fortran, plus my first introduction to IBM1130 assembler.
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