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Lesson · Grade 6 · Applied Design, Skills and Technologies

From Punch Cards to Code

  • Grade 6
  • Applied Design, Skills and Technologies
  • 1 min 15 s
  • British Columbia
  • BC6-AD-05

Programming moved from flipping switches and plugging in cables, to punching assembly code onto paper cards, to typing high-level code on a keyboard and screen, with the same "add 2 and 3" program shown in all three languages. Because the processor can only run machine code, a translator program turns the newer code back into ones and zeros.

Concept: From punch cards to code: how programming changed

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In one sentence

The question this lesson answers

How has programming changed since the first computers?

In the 1940s, many early computers were programmed by flipping switches and plugging in cables.

Transcript

What the lesson says

How has programming changed since the first computers?

In the 1940s, many early computers were programmed by flipping switches and plugging in cables.

Computers run machine code: instructions made of ones and zeros.

Long rows of ones and zeros are hard to read and easy to get wrong.

From the 1950s, programs were punched as holes in paper cards, usually one line on each card.

Assembly language uses short codes, like MOV and ADD, instead of ones and zeros.

By the 1970s, many programmers typed code on a keyboard and saw it on a screen.

High-level languages use words and math symbols, so they are easier for people to read.

All three examples do the same job: they add 2 and 3.

But the processor can only run machine code.

So a translator program turns the other code into ones and zeros.

Programming went from switches to punch cards to words, but computers still run it all as ones and zeros.

Curriculum

Where this fits

British Columbia, Grade 6

Applied Design, Skills and Technologies, Computational thinking: evolution of programming languagesBC6-AD-05

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The outcomes and strands follow the British Columbia curriculum.

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