To be a Programmer... without mathematics?

How I met Dr. Mitchell Valdés.

In other articles I have commented that in 1972 I was studying Pure Mathematics and I coincide with Dr. Pedro Valdés (Peter, as everyone knows him) that he was continuing his studies in Mathematics to increase his working capacities in Neurosciences.We became good friends, we studied together in the University Park, in the Classrooms, in the Library, until one day he told me: "Tomorrow, Saturday, I'll wait for you at my house to continue."Saturday comes, I go to Peter's house, I r...

CONCATISO. My first Program.

CONCATISO. My first Program. Well, first I must tell you where and why the need arose for a program such as CONCATISO, my first professionally speaking program. It was the years 1972... 1973... and the Department of Neurophysiology of the Center for Scientific Research (CENIC), led by Dr. Thalía Harmony, who in passing I will say was my main mentor in my early working years, A CID-201-B digital computer was awarded, manufactured by the then Central Institute for Digital Researc...

THE MOTORCYCLES OF INDEPENDENCE (1885-1940)

The articles presented in this space are the authorship of Onelio García Pérez and his friends, © www.HobbiesEnRed.com, based on empirical research, there have been few investigated periods as a result of addressing issues that go beyond the particular objectives of the Author. The historical approach present in the fascicles is the product of the limited bibliography available...

My fellow operators.

{loadmoduleid 135} In other articles I have commented that in the 70s our Neuroscience department had a CID-201-B minicomputer compatible with the PDP-8 of the DEC company and that the CID-201-B had only a typewriter teletype, a perforated paper tape reader, and a paper tape printer.In order to use this equipment, after developing and fine-tuning each program, it was necessary to "punch" the tapes with the data, or, for example, use the CONCATISO program (see article) to convert t...

To Manchita

I had the joy of meeting Manchita. I had never had dogs, as a child only a cat. Manchita came to us by chance. A friend of my daughter found her alone on the street, and despite the fact that for several days she made her visible in front of her house, no one claimed her. Well, my daughter stayed with her. At first I was little at home, spending time with my daughter, either in ballet classes or in her apartment. Later on, my daughter is hired abroad, and leaves us looking after...

Single link Cluster Analysis and Peter Valdes.

At the beginning of the 70s we had a computer with 32 Kilowords and 12 bits in length each word and to program it encoded the machine language by hand and could also use a posfix notation language called LEAL although it was difficult for us anyway to translate algorithms especially if what prevailed was the calculation, so frequent in the Neuroscience applications that we developed supported by statistics, including multivariate ones.In those years and also in the 60's, it was com...

To be a Programmer... without mathematics?

Programming... There are so many work and development opportunities for the Programmer and the Entrepreneur... Smart houses, the internet of things (IoT), websites as varied as the world is, mobile applications (Android, IOS), Security in communications and in business, PC applications (Windows, Mac, Chrome OS), are some examples of how varied and necessary for Programmers to do their work. Artificial intelligence? And who programs, trains, and maintains it? Programmers first. A...

Microsoft Access as a database is limited by design and what to do.

As the title indicates, the microsoft office database product, Microsoft Access, is limited by the company itself so that it does not compete with other products such as SQL Server and C# program development, for example.I explain:The first limitation is the commercial one. Access is not sold alone, but as part of Microsoft Office and therefore an application made in Access cannot be distributed without first verifying that the customer has a valid license of the same Office as suc...

Spreadsheets as a universal computing model.

Any two-dimensional screen can be viewed as a collection of rectangular cells. A point and even the entire screen can be defined as such. Almost all cell phones and computer screens are two-dimensional screens. And some may be three-dimensional. Therefore anything that runs on mobiles or PCs or MACs is seen on a two-dimensional screen as a collection of rectangular cells, or three-dimensional as rectangular cubes. In conclusion, anything that runs on mobiles or PCs or MACs can b...

The first motorcycle races and businesses in Cuba (1885-1940)

Spreadsheets are limited because... and serious errors can occur.

It is known to all that the use of Spreadsheets, such as the current Excel, since the beginning when VisiCalc appeared in 1979, have allowed many users without programming knowledge to be able to develop many and varied applications.In particular, the world of economics has been empowered by Spreadsheets. An accountant can directly carry out all or almost all of his work using them, since from the beginning they were conceived with a varied communication with other data processing...

Do you want to stop Windows 10 updates?

As it will have happened to all of you that for years Microsoft has imposed its Windows 10 updates above any personal or business consideration of those who have bought its product.And let's not say that they are only critical and security updates, along the way it has already imposed more than five versions of Windows 10 associated with the "continuous update" system that they implemented as a universal solution to the problems of Windows 10 itself.Well, along the way there have b...

Tapes, Punched Cards, and Machine Time.

It was the 70's and then we only had a 12-bit 32 Kilo Words computer, as I have commented, but the problems that we had to solve, especially statistical ones, needed many more resources.So I took on the task of "circumventing the bureaucracy" of the Computing Centers with their way of working: "submit the program and data on paper" and after days or weeks: "come and collect your results" or "the program did not compile" or "the program failed", which made us fix the problems on pap...

In Honor of Roberto

It was in the early 80's of the last century when a psychologist named Roberto began to work with us, a very affable man, always with a smile, I never saw him annoying, much less bothering anyone. He was welcome in our Neurosciences collective, although he actually belonged to the psychology school of the university. He immediately became interested in using the personal computers we had to design and create applications that would have an impact on psychology. We talked a lot, he...

FORTRAN. The best for calculus.

It was the 70's and I continued working as a programmer for the Neuroscience Department using the laboratory computer, which in other articles I have explained that it only had 32 Kilo Words of 12 bits each, a typewriter that could punch 8-bit paper tapes. channels (bits), and an 8-channel paper tape reader.I have also commented that I programmed coding "by hand", and as soon as it was available in the machine language assembler, and also in the LEAL language, which was "postfix".T...

Spreadsheets. The best visual programming language.

The history of Spreadsheets is fascinating, from Richard Mattessich who in 1972 wrote the article "Budgeting Models and System Simulation" creating the concept, to Pardo and Landau, who tried to obtain a Patent.But the renowned inventor of Spreadsheets is Dan Bricklin, with his VisiCalc, which was available since 1979 and was, let's say, the first and most important computing tool in the hands of anyone when it was implemented for the first computer that we can call "personal".I kn...

Program and fine-tune in assembler binary

It was the years 1973, 1974,...In the article on "CONCATISO my first program" I described in broad strokes the characteristics of the computer CID-201-B compatible with the PDP-8 of the DEC company.Recall that it was 12 bits long, but also only had a 12-bit accumulator register and 1 carry bit.Machine language instructions were encoded in those 12 bits where sometimes another word was used to access groups of 4096 (12 bits) memory words, and thus be able to access all 32 Kilowords...

The Goto. The great forgotten. Not to think structured.

I still remember when I was programming with GoTo. Programming without using it was not conceivable. Until the revolution started by Dijkstra with his note "Goto considered harmful" came to "structure" our minds for program development.The progress made with "Structured Programming" is incalculable, which allowed not only to increase the speed of having correct programs, but also to increase the number of people capable of programming.At that time, "Top to Bottom Programming" and "...

Vulnerabilities in Windows? They are dictated to the programmers.

Do you really think that programmers do our job "so badly" and make "so many mistakes" that we cause the thousands of vulnerabilities that the Windows operating system has had, has, and will have?As a fact, I affirm that all "legal" antiviruses ask Microsoft for various "entry and interception points" where to put their "legally added" programming to the operating system. For example, how do you think an antivirus "checks" every file before being "opened" by Windows Explorer? Becau...

FOCAL. Salcedo the Great.

It was the early 70s of the last century, and in our PDP-8 compatible minicomputer from Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) there was almost no way to program except by hand-coding machine language. Later, the Central Institute for Digital Research (ICID) developed the assembler and later the LEAL language (LEnguaje ALgoritmico) that I have referred to in other articles and in which it was quite difficult and tedious to program as it was postfix notation, especially when evaluating...

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