I wonder how many younguns would like to punch their programs into cards and
then go compile and get on object to execute the program from.
How many of them could write programs when you only 1400 bytes of memory to
work worth. My first IBM 1401 had 1401 bytes with the first 332 reserves for
cards in, output and printer output. The system did not have a multiply or
divide feature. Made for some creative programming
-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of James Lampert
Sent: Thursday, April 14, 2011 5:41 PM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: Re: Decided to hang it up
Musselman, Paul wrote:
I can hear the younger crowd asking, "What's a card reader? Some sort of
credit card thing?"
Kind of depressing: I've *used* Hollerith cards (albeit only once or
twice, and only in connection with a system that had no
batch-submit-from-terminal functionality), and most of the programmers I
know haven't a clue what a Hollerith card *is.*
On the other hand, one of the churches I bounce around among has a
digital organ that's old enough that it *takes* Hollerith cards for the
old Allen "Alterable Voices" feature. Although the cards aren't encoded
in Hollerith code, but rather in something denser, that's specialized
for squeezing a half-cycle sample into 80 columns.
--
JHHL
midrange.com
