How do you cope with not knowing?

[AlephZero]

"Paper" paper tape was the wimpy stuff. I've still got some of the oil-and-waterproof tape we used to use for numerical controlled machine tools, before "NC" turned into "CNC".

Those old paper tape punches were indestructible. I remember once coming into the tape duplicating room and finding one that had vibrated itself off its table and was still working away upside down on the floor.

We once gave some apprentices a "design and make" project to build a tape splicing block. They did a pretty good job, except for one small design flaw. They built it to last for ever, out of solid stainless steel, and it weighed about 20 pounds!

 

[OmCheeto]

You just made mine !

You can repair a "broken" file on that medium with Scotch tape and a toothpick. We've both no doubt done it, too.

We ran an ASR33 until 1990. You probably had KSR's in the military.

"ASR33 until 1990"? Good god!

I used an ASR33 for one term during my sophomore year in high school, circa 1975. There were no more computer classes offered after that...

When I got to my submarine in 1979, they were up to hub-cap sized floppies, an IBM Selectric style keyboard, and no paper.

Within a year or two, I was the first person on the ship to have purchased their own PC. Which for all the young kids out there, did not mean "A Microsoft machine" (vs "An Apple").
It meant; "MY OWN PERSONAL COMPUTER!"

argh.

ps.

Wilbur and Orville Wright's First Flight
December 17, 1903
"For some years, I have been afflicted with the belief that flight is possible to man. My disease has increased in severity and I feel that it will soon cost me an increased amount of money if not my life." Three years after Wilbur Wright wrote those words, he and his brother Orville put their belief in flight to the test in Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina.

Did their attempt to fly an airplane they had built in sections in the back room of their Dayton, Ohio bicycle shop cost Wilbur his life?...

According to wiki, 8 of the surviving oldest 100 people, ever, were born before we hadn't even had powered flight.

And there I got to sit, as a 10 year old, watch us become actual space travelers.

pps. I was 11 when I got to take my first flight on a 747. As I recall, it was a big deal when those planes were introduced.

 

[OmCheeto]

I've never used punch cards, I'm not THAT old

Yes, we determined that.

Punched "card"

I'd seen punch cards, but was about a year or two too old to have actually had to use them.

Take that, really, really old dudes!

 

[edward]

Yes, we determined that.

Punched "card"

I'd seen punch cards, but was about a year or two too old to have actually had to use them.

Take that, really, really old dudes!

So did you ever bend, fold, spindle, or mutilate a punch card??

 

[jim hardy]

Punch cards? You bet we mutilated them with creative "Go To" statements.

Way back when i was in college , like 1964, gasoline company credit machines used half size punch cards with carbon paper for the receipt. You signed it, kept the top sheet of paper and at month's end the company's computer mailed the punch cards to you along with with your bill.
Well, gas was around 25 cents a gallon in Missouri. I had Dad's credit card for emergencies so for a lark charged a tank of gas for my motorcycle, It was around forty-five cents...
I wrote "Hi Dad" on the back of the punch card,
when the bill arrived he took the punch card to work to show off as "A letter from my kid in college".

You know, they just don't make nostalgia like they used to.

old jim

 

[D H]

So did you ever bend, fold, spindle, or mutilate a punch card??

Yes.

Do you remember why some of these decks have a diagonal line(s) drawn on them?

 

[edward]

If the cards were dropped the lines on the sides helped to put them back in order.OK I cheated. I found it on a blog. It is an interesting blog about old computer technology, or I should say this page of it is.

http://mike-duncombe.blogspot.com/2012/12/living-in-future.html

I was in underground missile silos during that time frame. It seems to me my monthly pay checks were punch cards. We loaded targeting information into the guidance systems using that wonderful punched paper tape someone mentioned.

http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Titan-II-targeting-tape.jpg