Re: Punch Cards

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

 



On Fri, 04 Apr 2008 09:45:16 -0400
Ed Gurski <ed@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> > > The card reader jams were common

I'll say one thing for punched cards though - a deck of cards and a
duplicating punch were the best available text editor for many years :-).

You could do block moves of text - just move a chunk of cards in the deck.

You could insert characters on a line - just dup the card, then hold down
the original real hard so it couldn't move when you get to the insert
column, type your new charaters, then finish the dup.

You could cut & paste by duping cards, then inserting the new ones
in the right place.

I seem to recall they paid some fantastic sum of money for an advanced
system that would let you keep your card decks on disk and edit them
and submit the jobs from the disk copy - no one used it, the editor
was so awful - real cards worked much better.

And from the latest stories on the Census bureau's attempt to
computerize, I see the state of the art hasn't advanced much :-).


[Index of Archives]     [Current Fedora Users]     [Fedora Desktop]     [Fedora SELinux]     [Yosemite News]     [Yosemite Photos]     [KDE Users]     [Fedora Tools]     [Fedora Docs]

  Powered by Linux