Comment by fernly
1 day ago
I have heard that among older IBMers the 1620 (model 1) was known as CADET, for "Can't Add Doesn't Even Try".
1 day ago
I have heard that among older IBMers the 1620 (model 1) was known as CADET, for "Can't Add Doesn't Even Try".
The reason for that is that it did arithmetic via table lookup. As I heard from someone who was there, the University of British Columbia wanted to show off its brand new 1620, so they wrote a demo program, and with a host of onlookers, they pressed Memory Clear, then loaded the program, and it failed. Memory clear had erased the addition and multiplication tables.
LOL. I came here to make the same comment. I think the deal was they used a lookup table for addition instead of a modern ALU.
That’s what the GitHub page says, too. Lookup tables for multiplication and division, too.