On Wednesday, February 16, 2022 at 3:40:45 AM UTC-6, muta...@gmail.com wrote:   
   > What is the worst people had to do, presumably on   
   > early computers, to get a program/OS loaded? Did   
   > you have to enter a program one byte at a time with   
   > a set of 8 switches? Did you have another set of   
   > 16 switches for the address in memory, and then   
   > press an "enter" switch?   
   >   
   > Were there lights to see what was already at a   
   > particular address? And after all that effort, what   
   > was the mechanism to save the entered data to   
   > permanent storage, and load it again?   
   >   
   As to the last sentence..   
   o  there was paper tape, see ASR 33 .. https://en.wikipedia.org/   
   iki/Teletype_Model_33 .. some thing I never used.   
   o  there was audio tape, i.e. reel to reel or cassette, ref http   
   ://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZX_Spectrum  ..   
   Which I'd used, a micro-cassette connected to a ZX 81 and a portable B&W TV   
   with a 6" screen for output & BASIC in ROM.   
   -- which brings up the point of having BASIC in ROM and using BASIC peek &   
   poke as a program loading technique for a binary program.  The IBM 5150 has   
   BASIC in ROM, and a cassette interface circuitry.   
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Personal_Computer   
      
   As to the prior sentences..   
   This Altair 8800 article..   
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altair_8800   
   ..has pictures of the front panel, which seems is self-explanatory as to the   
   switches and selections.   
   Very early on, the front panel was the way to enter the Loader Program, byte   
   by byte, address by value, into memory to bootstrap a program (say an   
   interpreter like BASIC or an OS.  Later, this Loader was placed into ROM to   
   automate 'load and go'.   
      
   hth,   
      
   Steve   
      
      
   > Thanks. Paul.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)