>I can't speak about earlier machines, but the first computer I programmed, the IBM 705III, had 5K BCD characters (bytes came later) whose locations were numbered 0-4,999.
>We talked about the first character being at memory location 0, etc.
>We never referred to bits by location in the character but rather by value - the 0 bit, the 8 bit, etc.
>As far as I know, the 705III came on the scene somewhere around 1957.
>Assembler language for the 705III was zero based.
>
>Things were already confusing then tho. The two accumulators on the machine were called Accumulator 1 and Accumulator 2, rather than 0 and 1.
>
>Nothing is easy or it wouldn't be fun!!

Thanks for the info