Early Computing at the University of Alberta and the Introduction of the LGP-30
To re-create the University of Alberta's computing milieu of some 40 years ago, this article surveys the university's computational procedures before the arrival of the first computer and discusses the university's acquisition and use of the LGP-30
UTEC and Ferut: the University of Toronto's computation centre
Although not well known, the University of Toronto had a very early computer-development program and in 1952 was one of the first few institutions with an operable computer in North America. This article describes the university's initial attempt to build the UTEC computer and how it acquired the pioneering Ferut machine.<<ETX>>
The Airy tape: an early chapter in the history of debugging
The discovery of a paper-tape relic consisting of an undebugged program written for the EDSAC computer in 1949 is described. It is believed that this program is the first real, nontrivial application ever written for a stored-program computer. An examination of the program sheds new light on the extent to which the debugging problem was unanticipated by early computer programmers, and the motivation for the development at Cambridge of systematic programming practices and debugging aids. The impact of these early developments on programming elsewhere is discussed.<<ETX>>