Re: Manual interaction. Sure there's plenty of old computers where you can flip switches to input instructions or manipulate registers (memory on the cpu). But this is not much different from using assembly instructions except you're doing it live.

You can also create purpose built processors which might be what you mean? Generally this isn't too useful but sometimes it is. FPGAs are an example of doing this type of thing but using software to do the programming of the processor.

[–] Kolanaki@yiffit.net 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

this isn't too useful

The point isn't to be good, practical or useful. It's to be cool 😎

But this silly question still informed me of something I had misunderstood: I had thought assembly and machine code were the same thing.

[–] cacheson@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Perhaps you'd like to build an 8-bit computer?