4 ms·

As others have pointed out, the claimed link between banknotes and terminal dimensions is unclear, if not flat out wrong. The article's own logic is missing a c

As others have pointed out, the claimed link between banknotes and terminal dimensions is unclear, if not flat out wrong. The article's own logic is missing a crucial connection right here: > At one point sales of punchcards and related tooling constituted a completely bonkers 30% of IBM’s annual profit margin, so you can understand that IBM had a lot invested in getting that consistently, precisely correct. > At around this time John Logie Baird invented the first “mechanical television”; like punchcards, the first television cameras were hand-cranked devices... It goes on to argue that the television standards influenced terminal dimensions, but there is no link (unless I missed something) between the banknote/punchcard discussion and that of the television - other than the fact that they used hand-cranked devices. No mention as to the punchcard's size/dimensions being carried over to television (and by extension, terminals) other than what appears to be a coincidence in the number of characters fitting on a line of a punchcard. Looking at the origins of the television standards (at least for the number of terminal lines, since the number of characters per line seems to have been influenced by typewriters), one could trace it back to William Kennedy Dickson (created the 35mm standard by cutting 70mm roll film in half), or previously to Peter & David Houston and George Eastman for their creation/marketing of early roll film cameras.

thaumasiotes 7y ago
> > At one point sales of punchcards and related tooling constituted a completely bonkers 30% of IBM’s annual profit margin, so you can understand that IBM had a lot invested in getting that consistently, precisely correct. There's also a missing logical connection in here. If sales of punchcards were 30% of IBM's revenue and profit margins were tiny, then it would be very important to get them right. 30 different things can each be 30% of the profit margin at the same time that all 30 are insignificant to the company. More generally, how important it is to get the punch cards right depends on what your profit margin is on the punch cards, not on what the company's overall profits are.
WalterBright 7y ago
Punchcards (and thereby FORTRAN) were 80 columns. To have a viable glass tty, it needed to display 80 columns.
masswerk 7y ago
The link is probably as follows: Bank notes -> Hollerith card (80 x 12) -> Datapoint 2200 terminal (80 x 12, facilitated by 1K Intel linear shift register for display memory) -> 2K display buffer & 4:3 display dimensions of silent film (as opposed to the later academy format) as generally used for television as the major source of demand for readymade raster cathode ray tubes => two punch cards + 1 extra status line. The Datapoint 2200, evolving from an original idea about some data editing device to replace the IBM 029 keypunch, is missing in this account, though. Announced in 1970 (and shipping in 1971), it predates any of the terminals mentioned in the article. (BTW, the Datapoint 2200, which was also the ancestor of the Intel 8008 MPU and by this the ancestor of the modern PC, was an enormously influential device and is generally underrated for historical aspects.) The link between columns on a punch card and typewriters is probably found in the need for some correspondence between typed tables and information punched on cards. The aspect ratio of silent film is probably more for esthetic reasons, since the technical aspect of the width of a frame could have been addressed by any kind of gearing. However, there's a link between the speed of the film moving through the camera, the number of exposures per second, the width of the image, the optical quality of the lens, the shutter construction and the sensitivity of the film, putting some constrains on the aspect ratio of choice. (Obviously, if the film is moving too fast and exposure becomes too short for the chosen material, the resulting image will be dim. The choice of film sensisitivity, on the other hand, is related to image contrast.)

thaumasiotes 7y ago

> > At one point sales of punchcards and related tooling constituted a completely bonkers 30% of IBM’s annual profit margin, so you can understand that IBM had a lot invested in getting that consistently, precisely correct. There's also a missing logical connection in here. If sales of punchcards were 30% of IBM's revenue and profit margins were tiny, then it would be very important to get them right. 30 different things can each be 30% of the profit margin at the same time that all 30 are insignificant to the company. More generally, how important it is to get the punch cards right depends on what your profit margin is on the punch cards, not on what the company's overall profits are.

WalterBright 7y ago

Punchcards (and thereby FORTRAN) were 80 columns. To have a viable glass tty, it needed to display 80 columns.

masswerk 7y ago

The link is probably as follows: Bank notes -> Hollerith card (80 x 12) -> Datapoint 2200 terminal (80 x 12, facilitated by 1K Intel linear shift register for display memory) -> 2K display buffer & 4:3 display dimensions of silent film (as opposed to the later academy format) as generally used for television as the major source of demand for readymade raster cathode ray tubes => two punch cards + 1 extra status line. The Datapoint 2200, evolving from an original idea about some data editing device to replace the IBM 029 keypunch, is missing in this account, though. Announced in 1970 (and shipping in 1971), it predates any of the terminals mentioned in the article. (BTW, the Datapoint 2200, which was also the ancestor of the Intel 8008 MPU and by this the ancestor of the modern PC, was an enormously influential device and is generally underrated for historical aspects.) The link between columns on a punch card and typewriters is probably found in the need for some correspondence between typed tables and information punched on cards. The aspect ratio of silent film is probably more for esthetic reasons, since the technical aspect of the width of a frame could have been addressed by any kind of gearing. However, there's a link between the speed of the film moving through the camera, the number of exposures per second, the width of the image, the optical quality of the lens, the shutter construction and the sensitivity of the film, putting some constrains on the aspect ratio of choice. (Obviously, if the film is moving too fast and exposure becomes too short for the chosen material, the resulting image will be dim. The choice of film sensisitivity, on the other hand, is related to image contrast.)