On Apr 30, 5:04*am, " wrote:
I hate to admit it, but the first computer I "tried to program" was
the Univac 1 and the (Sperry?) Mark IV - all programming was in binary
and short term memory was mercury delay tanks (this in 1956 or so) -
Joel
in Florida

Your memory is bad. There was no Univac I. There was a Univac and
the next model was the Univac 2. Also a word was 12 alphanumeric
charactors and could contain two instructions. The first 3 charactors
were the instruction and the next 3 charactors was the address. 000
to 999. No binary involved. Right on the memory. 10 mercury delay
lines for 1000 words of memory.

Dan