4 ms·

Really interesting. What other examples can you think of?

gh02t 9y ago
Scroll lock, break/pause and sys rq keys on keyboards come to mind. They technically still are used for stuff but typically not what they were originally for and they could easily be removed or renamed, but still most full sized keyboards have them. Many, many things about computing apply, really, especially in operating systems and programming languages.
- gumby 9y ago
  We still need 'break' but few systems still implement it. Let's leave it in the hope that someone reads the rainbow books and brings it back.
gumby 9y ago
Hollerith punch cards (the overwhelming standard...there were other experiments though) were the size they were because Herman Hollerith wanted to use cash handling trays for managing the cards (they used to do statistics on them by lining them up and then manually running metal rods through the holes to see which ones were universal their set! No kidding.). The federal dollars back then were larger than the reserve notes we use today in the US. By the way the usually had rounded corners for the same reason rolodex and library card file cards usually did: less likely to become damaged and then caught in the machine. Whoever wrote that article didn't remember or perhaps had never actually seen, much less used these technologies. My favorite of these fossilized design elements though is on hearses in the US. Ever notice that they have a funny shape, like an elongated italic "S" on the side? It's actually a completely deracinated coach spring! When people started using motorized vehicles to transport coffins, they still liked to use a horse coach for more "formal" occasions like funerals (and coronations...) -- think of JFK's funeral or Queen Elizabeth (mother of the current Queen). Eventually to make the hearses seem more fancy they glued that stupid thing on. Another great one is the fossilized fashions of times gone by. Why do some banks still have fancy fronts or a logo with columns? Because back when banks actually kept their cash around they wanted to show off that they both had a solid building and were profitable enough to spend money on the expensive stuff kinds used...like marble. Nowadays if you visit someone really really rich with a modern house (i.e. castle) it's very often ultra high end glass and steel (Not just California, all over the globe) or exotics (think Geahry). The merely very wealthy are more likely to use the wealth signifiers of the "old days" (gold, crystal, marble).
- TheOtherHobbes 9y ago
  There's a certain class of 20/21st c. up-market housing in the UK's home counties that comes with a stuck-on pseudo-Georgian portico. https://www.cranbornestone.co.uk/Assets/User/616-Portico_A_2.jpg https://www.cranbornestone.co.uk/Assets/User/616-Portico_A_2... It's entirely for show - it certainly doesn't keep the rain out, like a real porch - and IMO it looks ridiculous, especially on a house that isn't particularly grand or large.
  - rsynnott 9y ago
    Fake Tudor-esque stuff is also common; wood just stuck onto a usually brick house.
- cr0sh 9y ago
  > Hollerith punch cards Ever wonder why a "standard terminal screen" size defaults to 80 columns? Because of punch cards - a standard punch card has 80 columns (rows vary, but a standard was 10-12 rows), and IBM made this standard on the PC for display to be able to show a punch card data on the screen. Likely this comes from dumb serial terminals of the era...so the standard carried over, for backwards compatibility.
  - gumby 9y ago
    > Because of punch cards - a standard punch card has 80 columns (rows vary, but a standard was 10-12 rows), and IBM made this standard on the PC for display to be able to show a punch card data on the screen. > Likely this comes from dumb serial terminals of the era...so the standard carried over, for backwards compatibility. Hey, I am from the serial dumb terminal era, which really only goes back to the 1960s! But you're right, that's where the 80 columns came from, and even as the tech got better, all that happened is we got more rows (24 was quite common, then to be exotic 48). I was already using bit mapped displays and mice in the late 70s when the 48 row terminals showed up (I had one in my office in school; I didn't rate a lispm terminal. Had to go to work for that). I wrote a lot of code on Ann Arbor Ambassador 80x48 terminals. I don't know where the 132 column printer "standard" came from. That's the stuff that printed on the green and white paper (first chain printers -- wow!) then dot matrix and finally daisy wheel. Not sure if there were golf ball printers that weren't typewriters but I was never an IBM user. I never saw a 132 column terminal -- it's possibly you could get a VT100 into that mode, I'm not sure. Remember, the character generation etc was often hard wired! I still use my terminals in 80 or 132 character mode. Actually, since they are "soft" I use them in 81 & 133 character mode to avoid spurious wrapping.

Scroll lock, break/pause and sys rq keys on keyboards come to mind. They technically still are used for stuff but typically not what they were originally for and they could easily be removed or renamed, but still most full sized keyboards have them. Many, many things about computing apply, really, especially in operating systems and programming languages.

gumby 9y ago
We still need 'break' but few systems still implement it. Let's leave it in the hope that someone reads the rainbow books and brings it back.

gumby 9y ago

Hollerith punch cards (the overwhelming standard...there were other experiments though) were the size they were because Herman Hollerith wanted to use cash handling trays for managing the cards (they used to do statistics on them by lining them up and then manually running metal rods through the holes to see which ones were universal their set! No kidding.). The federal dollars back then were larger than the reserve notes we use today in the US. By the way the usually had rounded corners for the same reason rolodex and library card file cards usually did: less likely to become damaged and then caught in the machine. Whoever wrote that article didn't remember or perhaps had never actually seen, much less used these technologies. My favorite of these fossilized design elements though is on hearses in the US. Ever notice that they have a funny shape, like an elongated italic "S" on the side? It's actually a completely deracinated coach spring! When people started using motorized vehicles to transport coffins, they still liked to use a horse coach for more "formal" occasions like funerals (and coronations...) -- think of JFK's funeral or Queen Elizabeth (mother of the current Queen). Eventually to make the hearses seem more fancy they glued that stupid thing on. Another great one is the fossilized fashions of times gone by. Why do some banks still have fancy fronts or a logo with columns? Because back when banks actually kept their cash around they wanted to show off that they both had a solid building and were profitable enough to spend money on the expensive stuff kinds used...like marble. Nowadays if you visit someone really really rich with a modern house (i.e. castle) it's very often ultra high end glass and steel (Not just California, all over the globe) or exotics (think Geahry). The merely very wealthy are more likely to use the wealth signifiers of the "old days" (gold, crystal, marble).

TheOtherHobbes 9y ago
There's a certain class of 20/21st c. up-market housing in the UK's home counties that comes with a stuck-on pseudo-Georgian portico. https://www.cranbornestone.co.uk/Assets/User/616-Portico_A_2.jpg https://www.cranbornestone.co.uk/Assets/User/616-Portico_A_2... It's entirely for show - it certainly doesn't keep the rain out, like a real porch - and IMO it looks ridiculous, especially on a house that isn't particularly grand or large.
- rsynnott 9y ago
  Fake Tudor-esque stuff is also common; wood just stuck onto a usually brick house.
cr0sh 9y ago
> Hollerith punch cards Ever wonder why a "standard terminal screen" size defaults to 80 columns? Because of punch cards - a standard punch card has 80 columns (rows vary, but a standard was 10-12 rows), and IBM made this standard on the PC for display to be able to show a punch card data on the screen. Likely this comes from dumb serial terminals of the era...so the standard carried over, for backwards compatibility.
- gumby 9y ago
  > Because of punch cards - a standard punch card has 80 columns (rows vary, but a standard was 10-12 rows), and IBM made this standard on the PC for display to be able to show a punch card data on the screen. > Likely this comes from dumb serial terminals of the era...so the standard carried over, for backwards compatibility. Hey, I am from the serial dumb terminal era, which really only goes back to the 1960s! But you're right, that's where the 80 columns came from, and even as the tech got better, all that happened is we got more rows (24 was quite common, then to be exotic 48). I was already using bit mapped displays and mice in the late 70s when the 48 row terminals showed up (I had one in my office in school; I didn't rate a lispm terminal. Had to go to work for that). I wrote a lot of code on Ann Arbor Ambassador 80x48 terminals. I don't know where the 132 column printer "standard" came from. That's the stuff that printed on the green and white paper (first chain printers -- wow!) then dot matrix and finally daisy wheel. Not sure if there were golf ball printers that weren't typewriters but I was never an IBM user. I never saw a 132 column terminal -- it's possibly you could get a VT100 into that mode, I'm not sure. Remember, the character generation etc was often hard wired! I still use my terminals in 80 or 132 character mode. Actually, since they are "soft" I use them in 81 & 133 character mode to avoid spurious wrapping.