how was the first code ever put into a blank piece of hardware

A

Antonys204

New Member
i dont no why but the past few weeks or so ive been trying to find the answer to this one question this one question i cant google or find anywhere i have looked and it really is starting to bug me so i thought i would ask a computer forum if any software developer would know this most likely not but any help towards this question would be great

i just cant see how it would happen somehow you have a piece of main board with nothing in it nothing in the processor or whatever was used when the first computer were made but how did they get there first snippet of code in i know now its done by computers but when it was the first one there was nothing else except a human/humans and his piece or hardware how did he /she/them manage to get it in i really cant work it out with my own brain power

any help at all would be greatly apreaciated to get this single question out of my head and have the no how please serious answers
 
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binary commands which were punched into strips of paper were fed into the computer. just imagine programming that, how painful it would be. sitting there with a roll of paper, punching holes with no compiler or anything to check your work.
and what would happen with the hanging chads
 
hjahmad said:
binary commands which were punched into strips of paper were fed into the computer. just imagine programming that, how painful it would be. sitting there with a roll of paper, punching holes with no compiler or anything to check your work.
and what would happen with the hanging chads
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i still dont see how the computer could read it. If it had nothing there how would it understand it if its first time ever seeing it, was it a mistake?
 
i dont think it worked they way you are thinking.
the punched holes corresponded to either 1 or 0 command. that can be read easily. after that it would probably be somewhat mechanical. now say it took a code of 1001 to turn on light bulb number 5. it would read it and turn on the first and last circuit, and send current through those lines, which would then be in some sort of parallel or series circuit to turn on the corresponding light. you can get more and more complicated when you incorporate gates. ex. an and gate. that turns on when there are 2 incoming signals. an and gate is just like a series circuit, bit switches need to be on for current to flow.
i apologize for my lack of proper terminology. it makes it just as hard to explain as it probably is to understand
 
hjahmad said:
i dont think it worked they way you are thinking.
the punched holes corresponded to either 1 or 0 command. that can be read easily. after that it would probably be somewhat mechanical. now say it took a code of 1001 to turn on light bulb number 5. it would read it and turn on the first and last circuit, and send current through those lines, which would then be in some sort of parallel or series circuit to turn on the corresponding light. you can get more and more complicated when you incorporate gates. ex. an and gate. that turns on when there are 2 incoming signals. an and gate is just like a series circuit, bit switches need to be on for current to flow.
i apologize for my lack of proper terminology. it makes it just as hard to explain as it probably is to understand
Click to expand...

thank you and i cant understand how hard it is to explain but this really helps me understand it more i still dont compltly get it but over time and more research into how it works i will get this
 
Here is the basic concept of all programming, even to this day. You input something to achieve desired output. The very basic of input is positive or negative, 1 or 0. Based on the input given, the software will know what to do.
 
it was the vacuum tubes which basically were the switches. i assume each vacuum tube was created differently depending on how many parameters it took into account (probably just 2), and outputed another binary signal (on or off). so now just imagine the many possobilites of branhes that can be added to make it do what ever you want. these were basically electromechanical machines. not like the first fully mechanical calculators from the 17th century or like the fully electronic machines we have today. they were a mix.
now the next gen computers, were programmed by changing out panels and flipping switchs. and after that, they were probably able to store certain configurations of those switches and once you can do that, programming would become much easier. thats when you can start programming a program language.
 
hjahmad said:
i dont think it worked they way you are thinking.
the punched holes corresponded to either 1 or 0 command. that can be read easily. after that it would probably be somewhat mechanical. now say it took a code of 1001 to turn on light bulb number 5. it would read it and turn on the first and last circuit, and send current through those lines, which would then be in some sort of parallel or series circuit to turn on the corresponding light. you can get more and more complicated when you incorporate gates. ex. an and gate. that turns on when there are 2 incoming signals. an and gate is just like a series circuit, bit switches need to be on for current to flow.
i apologize for my lack of proper terminology. it makes it just as hard to explain as it probably is to understand
Click to expand...

Liked it. worked well. Still complicated though. anyway ya look at it. have to be familiar with hardware architecture. might be hardware and chips or software like an operating system. Even Gates did not do my himself. they hired people. specializing with subs, routines and getting something done. Then somebody hooks it all together and makes a program. Me, my machine language was a basic level. NO. i could not create a program in machine language. YES, i could modify a segment. or new enough about increasing the stack or displacement. New something about processors and registerys. its about flags and goes on and on. been a long time.
interesting how people make it happen though.
 
yeah that always made me wonder. in school, we would always have these programs that linked with what ever logic boards or microcontrollers that we were programming so connecting the hardware to the computer and coding software was very easy. but that made me wonder how i would do it if i got my own random chips from where ever, sparkfun or somwhere. how would i program that. how would i connect it. is there something just generic or is there more to it.
 
tlarkin said:
Here is the basic concept of all programming, even to this day. You input something to achieve desired output. The very basic of input is positive or negative, 1 or 0. Based on the input given, the software will know what to do.
Click to expand...

Aren't 0s and 1s, in physical terms, demagnetized or magnetized pieces of hardware?
 
ScottALot said:
Aren't 0s and 1s, in physical terms, demagnetized or magnetized pieces of hardware?
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lot more complicated than that. at least from an electronic stand point.
In electronic term its pull low or pull high. your answer is yes.
You can pull low with a cap or high. Or a pin on another chip that is implemented will
turn it on or shut it off.

nice thing is they got it down patt. they know.
if your interested, softice software debugger for machine.
Im out of the loop now and have been. been a long time.
 
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ScottALot said:
Aren't 0s and 1s, in physical terms, demagnetized or magnetized pieces of hardware?
Click to expand...

In many cases, yes. All that really matters though is that there is a difference in the electrical signal between 1 and 0. There are many other ways to store data, such as varying the voltage or polarity of whatever the memory is being stored on. All that matters is that the controller can translate it into binary code.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_memory#Principles_of_operation
 
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