Clean Coder

A Bit of History about Bits.

Memory was always the problem. Once we had established that we could process information with relays, or vaccuum tubes, or transistors; the problem was where to keep the information we were processing.

Random Access Memory (RAM) within the computer was tricky during those days. By the time I became a programmer, in 1968, the move to core memory was pretty well established. But in the years just before that there were many different schemes, including accoustic waves through tubes of mercury, or magnetic drums, or even using electron beams to store charge on the surface of a Cathode Ray Tube.

Indeed, one of the early programmable calculators that I used in High School, the Olivetti-Underwood Programma 101, stored its information in accoustic waves travelling down steel wires.

Paper with Holes.

Early computers used paper tape and punched cards to store the information being

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