It disturbs me that, 35 years after IBM stopped making punched-card equipment, I still can read card codes. There are definitely better uses for those neurons.

It disturbs me that, 35 years after IBM stopped making punched-card equipment, I still can read card codes. There are definitely better uses for those neurons. We got personal computers into our university (one lab of Macs for CS and one of PCs for engineers) because of the discontinuation of unit-record equipment. Working with several people from affected departments, I co-authored the proposal that was ultimately approved; we submitted it to the university committee that was struck to manage this transition, the “Committee to Abolish The Card Reader” (yes, that was its official name). To this day, I'm pleased that we managed to bypass time-sharing terminals for our first- and second-year students.