Question

In the old days of computing, when there were no video monitors and everything was programmed by flipping switches that controlled individual bits or octets or something, how did they manage to code algorithms like binary search, sorting, dijkstra's algorithm, or even assemblers or compilers?

Answer 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akvSE5Z474c

Answer 2

The old days for me were punch cards. Lots of fun, especially trying to decipher the reports afterwards.

Answer 3

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/computinghistory/eniac.html