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Retrocomputing
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texdr.aft
  • Member for 5 years, 1 month
  • Last seen this week
  • Texas, USA
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About

I like computing history, with an emphasis on the history of programming languages. My display name is a reference to Donald Knuth's early memo about TeX.

My favorite programming languages are Common Lisp, C (via CWEB), and (mainly in theory) Algol 68. The perfect language, in my opinion, would be a blend of these three.

Outside of computing, I am interested in music theory and philology.

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question
37
What was the first programming language to support “operator chaining”?
Jun 23, 2021
answer
29
Did COBOL have an English-like "or" operator?
Jun 24, 2021
question
22
When did the IBM 650 have a "Table lookup on Equal" instruction?
Dec 20, 2020
question
20
Why does Pascal have numeric labels?
Jul 11, 2021
question
19
What was the first programming language, other than Lisp, to have “short-circuiting” Boolean expressions?
Jun 28, 2021
question
17
When was the phrase "sufficiently smart compiler" first used?
Jan 14, 2021
answer
17
Why did the assigned goto statement in Fortran need a label list?
Nov 9, 2020
question
14
Are there any primary sources for the “passing constant by reference” behavior in old Fortran compilers?
May 23, 2021
question
14
What was the first programming system to place no limitations on the length of identifiers?
Jun 9, 2021
question
13
How did the Burroughs B5000/B5500 provide hardware support for implementing Algol's call-by-name?
May 15, 2021

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14
Since we accept at least some computing history questions, could we also accept questions about more recent, 21st-century history?

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13
Did Alexander Graham Bell suggest that “Ahoy!” (or some variation of it) be the standard telephone greeting?
13
What did Ancient Greek plays look like?
11
Executable files with a bytecode compiler/interpreter
11
Rehearsal Letters: Skipping I, J, O?
9
What is Holon Programming?