Translations:Prologue/22/en

Before the hike I was working on the part of the program that would tell the computer the order in which it should perform operations when someone inputs an expression such as 3(2 + 5) x 8 − 3, or wants to create a game that requires complex math. In programming that feature is called a formula evaluator. Trudging along with my eyes on the ground in front of me, I worked on my evaluator, puzzling through the steps needed to perform the operations. Small was key. Computers back then had very little memory, which meant programs had to be lean, written using as little code as possible so as not to hog memory. The PDP-8 had just 6 kilobytes of the memory a computer uses to store data that it’s working on. I’d picture the code and then try to trace how the computer would follow my commands. The rhythm of walking helped me think, much like a habit I had of rocking in place. For the rest of that day my mind was immersed in my coding puzzle. As we descended to the valley floor, the snow gave way to a gently sloping trail through an old forest of spruce and fir trees until we reached the river, set up camp, ate our Spam Stroganoff, and finally slept.