3 ms·
A little offtopic and showing my age, but in 1985, personal computers were still a little expensive, and my high school couldn't afford an Apple ][ lab yet, but
by slantyyz 10y ago
A little offtopic and showing my age, but in 1985, personal computers were still a little expensive, and my high school couldn't afford an Apple ][ lab yet, but we did have a Digital PDP-(something) mini computer with a card reader (probably a donated relic).
In my grade 10 "Data Processing" class (when was the last time you heard someone use the term Data Processing?), we had to use IBM cards with a Sharpie (the card reader was thankfully an optical reader vs a punch card reader) to write programs in BASIC (when BASIC still used line numbers). When we had tests, we had to basically write our programs at our desks on cards, run to the card reader to run and check our results on a printout. It made for some hilariously tedious debugging cycles.
If my memory serves correctly, back in that era, having an 80 column card on your Apple II was something worth bragging about.
- B1FF_PSUVM 10y ago> thankfully an optical reader vs a punch card reader Hey, with punched cards you had: a) free confetti, b) gunfire soundtrack. You were deprived and are in the Nile.
- nickzoic 10y agoYep, a pretty serious piece of kit, although you really needed a monochrome monitor for it to work properly ... regular TVs didn't have the horizontal bandwidth.