4 ms·

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

by jf 7y ago

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/ http://ibm-1401.info/

Zenst 7y ago
Why COBOL has that 80 character limit. But for far reaching legacy hangovers, you can't beat the QWERTY keyboard when it comes to tech. A layout born to slow down typists in a way to prevent the hammers jamming upon mechanical keyboards of old. But the legacy of punched cards is deeper with that 80 character limit and bank card data formats and many other things had that character limit consideration come into play. So if you ever see a data field that seems to arbitrary have around 70-80 characters(rest used for transaction ID, EOR char, checksum char(s) to pad the 70+ to the full 80 characters), it may well be down to punched cards if you go down the historical rabbit holes.
- masonic 7y ago
  A layout born to slow down typists in a way to prevent the hammers jamming... Myth. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/fact-of-fiction-the-legend-of-the-qwerty-keyboard-49863249/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/fact-of-fiction-...
  - rrss 7y ago
    That article, and the source it references [1], are no more convincing than the sources that support this "myth". [1] bases it's conclusion primary on the assertions and opinions of the authors. > At least, in our opinion, T, the most frequently-used consonant, should have moved to the center of keyboard, W, the other semivowel, to the upper row, Q, less frequently-used letter, to the edge, and I, also used for thenumeral 1, near by 8 to type “1870” or “1871” rapidly ... After reading that article, I don't know why I should trust the opinion of those authors over the findings of every other author (which support the "myth"). It's pretty clear that the most common digrams are well separated in the typebar basket, with the exception of e+r, which is because 'r' and '.' were swapped by the manufacturers, not the designers. [1]: http://kanji.zinbun.kyoto-u.ac.jp/~yasuoka/publications/PreQWERTY.html http://kanji.zinbun.kyoto-u.ac.jp/~yasuoka/publications/PreQ...
    - masonic 7y ago
      every other author (which support the "myth") Which are?
      - rrss 7y ago
        Please see the list of references at the end of the paper.
litoE 7y ago
This is not quite accurate. The first few columns were reserved for an optional numeric statement label that could then be used as a target for an IF or GOTO statement (and we used lots of those!) Labels did not have to be in numerically increasing order. On the other hand, the last few columns of the card were ignored by the compiler, and could indeed be used to hold numerical values. These could be used to sort the deck of cards if you dropped it. The choice of numerical values in this column was not trivial because of the way programs were edited to fix bugs: you manually removed some cards and inserted new ones into the deck. You never repunched the whole program.
- walshemj 7y ago
  And normally in Fortran the statement numbers used different ranges. From memory we used to use a common standard where 6000 series for GOTO etc 7000 for input FORMAT 8000 for output FORMATS
- imtringued 7y ago
  But isn't the idea the same? If you have explicit line numbers then you can just load the cards in any order. No need to sort it.

by jf 7y ago

Zenst 7y ago

Why COBOL has that 80 character limit. But for far reaching legacy hangovers, you can't beat the QWERTY keyboard when it comes to tech. A layout born to slow down typists in a way to prevent the hammers jamming upon mechanical keyboards of old. But the legacy of punched cards is deeper with that 80 character limit and bank card data formats and many other things had that character limit consideration come into play. So if you ever see a data field that seems to arbitrary have around 70-80 characters(rest used for transaction ID, EOR char, checksum char(s) to pad the 70+ to the full 80 characters), it may well be down to punched cards if you go down the historical rabbit holes.

masonic 7y ago
A layout born to slow down typists in a way to prevent the hammers jamming... Myth. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/fact-of-fiction-the-legend-of-the-qwerty-keyboard-49863249/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/fact-of-fiction-...
- rrss 7y ago
  That article, and the source it references [1], are no more convincing than the sources that support this "myth". [1] bases it's conclusion primary on the assertions and opinions of the authors. > At least, in our opinion, T, the most frequently-used consonant, should have moved to the center of keyboard, W, the other semivowel, to the upper row, Q, less frequently-used letter, to the edge, and I, also used for thenumeral 1, near by 8 to type “1870” or “1871” rapidly ... After reading that article, I don't know why I should trust the opinion of those authors over the findings of every other author (which support the "myth"). It's pretty clear that the most common digrams are well separated in the typebar basket, with the exception of e+r, which is because 'r' and '.' were swapped by the manufacturers, not the designers. [1]: http://kanji.zinbun.kyoto-u.ac.jp/~yasuoka/publications/PreQWERTY.html http://kanji.zinbun.kyoto-u.ac.jp/~yasuoka/publications/PreQ...
  - masonic 7y ago
    every other author (which support the "myth") Which are?
    - rrss 7y ago
      Please see the list of references at the end of the paper.

litoE 7y ago

This is not quite accurate. The first few columns were reserved for an optional numeric statement label that could then be used as a target for an IF or GOTO statement (and we used lots of those!) Labels did not have to be in numerically increasing order. On the other hand, the last few columns of the card were ignored by the compiler, and could indeed be used to hold numerical values. These could be used to sort the deck of cards if you dropped it. The choice of numerical values in this column was not trivial because of the way programs were edited to fix bugs: you manually removed some cards and inserted new ones into the deck. You never repunched the whole program.

walshemj 7y ago
And normally in Fortran the statement numbers used different ranges. From memory we used to use a common standard where 6000 series for GOTO etc 7000 for input FORMAT 8000 for output FORMATS
imtringued 7y ago
But isn't the idea the same? If you have explicit line numbers then you can just load the cards in any order. No need to sort it.