[HN Gopher] Punched Cards ___________________________________________________________________ Punched Cards Author : li4ick Score : 10 points Date : 2020-03-07 21:08 UTC (1 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.computerhistory.org) (TXT) w3m dump (www.computerhistory.org) | gorgoiler wrote: | Oh wow what a huge amount of content. This is fantastic. Really | nailing the goal of being an online museum. | jf wrote: | As someone who first started using computers in the 90s, I lacked | the tactile experience with cards that the generation before mine | had. I long suspected that I had missed something by not having | used punched cards, little realizing just how much I had missed. | | What was shocking to me about punched cards is the indelible mark | that they left on modern day computing. Why do terminals default | to 80 columns? That's the width of a punched card. Why do tabs | have variable length? The key used to move to the next "field" on | a punched card, by way of a physical tab stop. Why did FORTRAN | reserve the first few columns to line numbers? So you could put | your FORTRAN deck in a card sorter if you dropped it. | | The link above seems to mirror the first part of the exhibit at | the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, which is well worth | seeing in person. | | Even better are the live demonstrations of the IBM 1401 that are | also done at the Computer History Museum on Wednesday's and | Saturday's: http://ibm-1401.info/ ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2020-03-07 23:00 UTC)