Ancestors

Written by media archaeology lab on 2024-12-19 at 18:37

just in case you've got an excess of punch cards and a lack of Christmas decor...

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Written by AI6YR Ben on 2024-12-19 at 18:39

@mediaarchaeologylab LOL I grew up with the only paper in the house being old punch cards, because my mom used to code them for her job.

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Written by dr_a on 2024-12-19 at 19:45

@ai6yr @mediaarchaeologylab I almost got in trouble once for leaving a pile of punch cards at the front of the classroom for a prof. I may have triggered a traumatic flashback.

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Written by AI6YR Ben on 2024-12-19 at 20:07

@dr_a @mediaarchaeologylab

(flashback to 1950, when prof was a student)

"Hi professor! Here's my homework... I worked on it all night!" (slips on floor) "WHOOPS! AWWW CRUD! I DROPPED THE ENTIRE STACK!!! 😭 "

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Written by Paul_IPv6 on 2024-12-19 at 20:40

@ai6yr @dr_a @mediaarchaeologylab

ooh! floor sort!

you only do one of those before you learn to make a diagonal marker line across the top of the deck. so much faster than trying to read sequence/card numbers.

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Written by Bill Ricker on 2024-12-19 at 21:24

@paul_ipv6 @ai6yr @dr_a @mediaarchaeologylab

this is one reason certain early languages reserved card columns 73-80 for sequence numbers, or had leading line numbers.

an offline card sorting machine could reorder a dropped deck semi-automatically.

In 1978 I was paid to operate such a machine since my time on it cost less than the IBM 370 (maybe already a 3033?) SORT command after loading a deck to disk, and tomorrow was soon enough.

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Written by AI6YR Ben on 2024-12-19 at 21:25

@n1vux @paul_ipv6 @dr_a @mediaarchaeologylab LOL on being used as a cheaper option than running a computer command, ha ha.

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Toot

Written by Bill Ricker on 2024-12-19 at 21:31

@ai6yr @paul_ipv6 @dr_a @mediaarchaeologylab

And I was making better than minimum wage, tho' undergrad intern p/t wage wasn't good, it was still better than other p/t available.

Mainframes were expensive and not terribly fast yet then, even at college's internal billing rate. (Still expensive but much faster and more parallel so much less per CPU HOUR today, inflation corrected.)

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Descendants