Talk:Programma 101

Simulator available
Would the wikipedia like to host a simulator for the Programma 101 I wrote? alsolarry@smith-house.org
 * Wikipedia doesn't host or distribute software, but if you have a URL, I think that might be appropriate in the External Links section. Adam Di Carlo (talk) 08:21, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Why not beaver pelts or slaves?
Why not convert the Programma 101's 1965 price of $3,200 into beaver pelts or slaves, and not just XAG? Well, there was likely little demand for beaver pelts in 1965, and such are not likely come back in style. Slaves, on the other hand, were alleged to have been used in 1965 and are still still to be had, and furthermore is likely to remain so, so if anyone knows how to convert USD into XSL, please post it.

Why?

A prior version of this article remarked that the introductory price was "almost affordable." It wasn't me, but I did understood it from having been a USAF airman in 1965, when I would have considered a car of that price "almost affordable." Such un-sourced assertions are certainly POV, and just as certainly the 101's affordability depended upon how much disposable income one had &mdash;  which was almost limitless for such Mission Impossible-style operations as  Operation Menu, which employed 101s to alter bombing coordinates secretly, from those which were permissible under the rules of engagement of the time, to those which were not.

Having a lot of time on my hands, I ventured to see how much silver was in the number of 40%-silver Kennedy half dollars that it would have taken to buy a one-0-one: the significance being that the US had introduced 40%-silver coins into circulation at the same time, so as to make the cost of these and other war toys "almost affordable."

The XAG currency symbol makes it easy to covert that amount of silver to just about any current currency for anyone with an active Internet connection and active interest in doing so, which might not include those reading Wikipedia from a recording, but still even those with an active interest should have access to historical records, and could dig it up like I did.

I am unaware of occasions when US Armed Forces paid for equipment with beaver pelts or slaves, though I'm not saying it didn't happen - I was a young and foolish airman in 1965, and would have paid for pussy with beaver pelts or slaves had I had any at my disposal. Certainly, articles reporting activities of those forces opposed to US forces allege that the other side did employ slaves to further their war aims, and such allegations can be turned around the other way, but how does one convert 1965-era USD into a market rates for slaves? --Pawyilee (talk) 13:58, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
 * The relevant point to the encyclopedia is No original research. Comparing the purchase price to an arbitrary commodity is...arbitrary. --Wtshymanski (talk) 17:53, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Why silver? Not only were US dollars semi-silver in 1965, silver was and still is fungible. Slaves and beaver pelts are not. Though fungibility has nothing to do with the ability to exchange one commodity for another different commodity, and refers only to the ease of exchanging one unit of a commodity with another unit of the same commodity, the advent of on-line commodity tracking makes it fairly easy to compare different fungible commodities on a daily basis. What's arbitration (not to be confused with arbitrage) got to do with how almost affordable the 101 was? Or does that have to do with whether anyone else but me gives a connection to things that tend to be expensive? --Pawyilee (talk) 08:52, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
 * ref name="Bell, Newell" shows the effect of inflation on the 1965 introductory price of $3,200 as of 1968, so I added it with an in-line link to US adopted dollar, and charged the $3,500 to Bell, Newell. Still lack ref for the introductory price, and for the equivalent in beaver pelts and slaves. --Pawyilee (talk) 13:08, 7 November 2010 (UTC)
 * It would be useful to find an authoritative source for $3200 at introduction, I found some sketchy sources thataren't obvious echoes of Wikipedia. the bell book does say $3500 in '68. --Wtshymanski (talk) 15:21, 7 November 2010 (UTC)
 * 'twould also be useful for you to haul your ax over to the HP-9100 story where it reads: With CRT readout, magnetic card storage, and printer, the price was around $5000 ($31,000 in 2009 dollars), and whack the para-pathetical non-cents. I'd do it, but your sarcastic commentary is more cutting. --Pawyilee (talk) 15:11, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Used to teach programming in American middle school
Can't post this to article, as it's "original research" (actually firsthand knowledge)... I was taught how to program the Programma 101 in seventh grade math class in New York, USA, 1968-69. Specifically remember writing programs to print Fibonacci number and Prime number sequences. After you got to a certain point with the primes, it took several minutes to print the next one. Wbm1058 (talk) 22:00, 2 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Yep, OR. I also learned to program on an Olivetti 101 about those same years, in high school, in El Paso, Texas.  Dicklyon (talk) 22:44, 2 August 2011 (UTC)


 * My high school computer room had an IBM 1620, early 1970s. That article does have a reference for substantial education use. Wbm1058 (talk) 16:41, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

I searched for, and failed to find an online reference for usage the Programma 101 in JHS and HS. It was the computer at Brooklyn Prep from 1968 to 1970. The availability of the BASIC programming language over Time-sharing systems eliminated the need for schools to purchase devices like the Programma 101 which were rapidly being supplanted by newer models. patsw (talk) 21:51, 7 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Ah yes, Dartmouth BASIC running on the Dartmouth Time Sharing System (or the GE Mark I time-sharing system) on the GE-265 system (GE 235 + DATANET-30). GE opened 25 computer centers in the United States and elsewhere, serving over fifty thousand users. By 1968, when Bill Gates, and me, on opposite sides of the US, learned BASIC using this system, General Electric Information Services (GEIS) had 40% of the $70 million time-sharing market. I don't remember which came first for me, the Programma 101 or BASIC on the GE timesharing system – I may have had access to both systems concurrently. Ah, the good old days, when GE was a technology company rather than a reinsurer of long-term care insurance policies. – wbm1058 (talk) 20:59, 24 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Actually I think a Teletype Model 33 ASR connected to a GE 635 running the GE Mark II system. – wbm1058 (talk) 21:45, 18 September 2019 (UTC)
 * It was also used to teach programming at The Prairie School in the late 70's; I wouldn't be surprised if many more schools picked up used ones as they were retired from industry. But I doubt we can find a published source to cite for any of these instances. Sderose (talk) 15:13, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

Harvard architecture
This article says: So its most distinctive structural difference from later computers was that its instruction space and its data space were functionally separate.

The Harvard architecture article says: The Harvard architecture is a computer architecture with physically separate storage and signal pathways for instructions and data.

So how can the first statement be true in that the Programma 101 is distinguished from later ones when later ones with separate instruction and data exist? Breedentials (talk) 10:48, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

Most computers now are not Harvard architecture, though most programmable calculators are. Gah4 (talk) 22:26, 24 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, it has a slightly modified Harvard Architecture (you can use some instruction space as data space, but not vice-versa). It was a common feature in the '60s desktop computer/programmable calculator, only HP had true Von Neumann architectures which allowed for self modifying code and they switched to Harvard with they embraced the handheld programmable calculators. If you're still interested, I've clarified the article and I wrote an article in Italian about it, which is quite readable with Google Translate. Feel free to contact me if you want the link :) --Sciking (talk) 19:38, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

HP 9100 Royalties?
The article states that HP was "ordered to pay about $900,000 in royalties to Olivetti after copying some of the solutions adopted in Programma 101, like the magnetic card and the architecture, in the HP 9100." This statement has no actual relevant citation. One of the citations is the Olivetti patent, which doesn't prove HP ever paid any royalties. The other citation is a link to some random guy's un-cited comment on old-computers.com, which claims the $900,000 in royalties but makes no mention of HP copying the P101 architecture. Does an actual primary source for this information exist? Accutron (talk) 21:06, 21 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Note that you don't have to actually copy something to infringe the patent. Having reinvented something is not a defense against infringement. It would be nice to have a citation, though.  Gah4 (talk) 22:28, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

List of Early PC's
Wikipedia should have a list of early candidates for "personal computer" or at least "desktop computer" to help one compare and learn about various early endeavors. (I would make one, but the "citation cops" usually trash such efforts.) --146.233.0.201 (talk) 17:30, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
 * See List of early microcomputers and . wbm1058 (talk) 00:39, 21 August 2017 (UTC)

programmable calculator or computer?
The article seems to sometimes call it a programmable calculator, and sometimes a desktop computer. Seems to me that the distinction is important, and mostly comes from the way a device is used. Gah4 (talk) 22:30, 24 September 2018 (UTC)


 * For me it's programmable (scientific) calculator (see note at the end), because it doesn't have string manipulation. It could be called a computer (as "programmable machine to compute", but it wasn't general purpose computer). --MarMi wiki (talk) 23:34, 5 January 2019 (UTC)
 * By modern standards it was just a programmable calculator. But, as I recall, we called it a "computer" in the late 1960s. Handheld calculators did not debut until the early 1970s. wbm1058 (talk) 19:02, 24 August 2019 (UTC)
 * yep, in the '60s it was definitely a computer. As an example we, in Italian, called those machines "calcolatori da tavolo" ("tabletop mathematical computer" or "calculator" as in the Harvard Mark I) and only reserves the title "calcolatrice programmabile" to the hand-held devices. I'm quite happy with the article status today, to be honest: as a "way of use" it was somewhere in between of the calculator and the computer, but as said by some references it's a stored program computer. So, let's mix the terms and use them where appropriate :) --Sciking (talk) 19:44, 4 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Remember, in 1939 the definition of a computer was "a person who computes". As an old FORTRAN programmer, computing was a big thing in the 1940s-1980s. 2601:3C8:C100:18F0:CD6F:F58A:D62E:B1AE (talk) 15:54, 11 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Probably off-topic but, this computer does not have a microprocessor, right? There are dedicated chips. Don Ema Valecirro (talk) 01:49, 3 January 2022 (UTC)
 * No microprocessors, no chips, no integrated circuits. Just Caps, transistors and diodes soldered to a board. It does point out the article is written in such WP:PUFF its hard to pull out exactly what the description is. Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 02:58, 3 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Actually did a rough cleanup of the article re: structure was so scattered and so bent on making PUFF points it was hard to follow. Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 17:18, 3 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Transistors were used in generation 2 computers. Integrated circuits and microprocessors found there way into computers in generation 3 and 4 computers respectively. 2601:3C8:C100:18F0:CD6F:F58A:D62E:B1AE (talk) 15:58, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

DISCOVERING MATHEMATICS THROUGH COMPUTERS by Viggo P Hansen
A series of six student text books were prepared by V.P.Hansen, et al and published by Olcott Forward, Inc for use in American high schools: Discovering Mathematics through Computers. 1) Rational Numbers, Part 1 2) Rational Numbers, Part 2 3) Algebra 4) Geometry 5) Advanced Algebra and Trigonometry 6) Probability and Statistics. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:8801:C100:24B0:31E9:DE11:80A:3993 (talk) 21:34, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Do those books use the Programma 101 as one of the computers? If not, then it's not relevant to this page's topic. Guy Harris (talk) 21:57, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Additional simulator
I mistakenly edited the "Simulators" section when I read yesterday that the first simulator was done in the 90's. Like many others, I first learned programming on the 101, in high school in the late 70's. After learning BASIC as well, I wrote a translator that read an ASCII version of 101 code (had to substitute other punctuation for a few symbols like arrows and "print") and wrote out a 1:1 BASIC equivalent you could run. I cited/linked an account of it that I posted 15+ years ago, but it's not the sort of thing that gets published about. The translator did win a state programming competition (with a nice scholarship), but the awarding organization is long gone. There might be a local newspaper article about the award, but even if so it would not likely mention the particulars. Last night I got an email telling me that mentioning it is a conflict of interest; which I can understand. I came back to remove the edit this morning, but it was already reverted. So my question is, what *should* I do, if anything? The claim of first simulation (at least, if a translator plus a BASIC interpreter counts as a simulator), is off by almost 20 years in the page; but there's no source to cite other than my page (various other people could also verify it, but they're unlikely to publish on it either). It's not important enough to me to spend much time on it, but the "first" claim is off by enough that it seems wrong to just leave that as is. So, what is the proper course? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sderose (talk • contribs) 15:41, 2 November 2022 (UTC)


 * The proper course would be a to find a secondary source covering these... but I don't see any. The whole section is pretty WP:OR, allot of claims made based on some editors observations that these things exist. At the risk of making the section even more OR I am going to revert back in your entry and try to remove some of the synthetic claims. Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 02:11, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

Instruction set
The section about operation says "There are 16 jump instructions and 16 conditional jump instructions". But the table in the "instruction set" section does not include any jump instructions at all. Maybe the section should be renamed to "an excerpt of the instruction set"? 94.255.250.108 (talk) 15:15, 29 February 2024 (UTC)