Same way we do, with binary numbers representing OPcodes for operations we want to execute. The difference is they had to physically punch holes in rows on a sheet of paper (punch card) to represent a binary number.
Hence bugs being literal bugs getting into the machine and fucking up the readings, and patches being literal patches they put on the punch cards to "unpunch" holes.
It'd be faster to just stack them like they are in the picture and make the line line up than read the shittily printed numbers on the face of each card.
It's even faster to put a rubber band around them and put it in a container so it doesn't scatter in the first place.
2 weeks ago
Anonymous
Ah, apparently there were machines for sorting them, if you were lucky enough to own one. >Many programming languages were designed specifically so that lines of code would be a maximum of 72 characters long; the extra 8 characters on a punched card would be completely ignored. This meant that programmers could punch a sequence number on each card, so that if they were ever dropped they could run them through a collating machine to sort them into order. Collating machines were big expensive luxuries that most installations didn't have.
SO had the answer so lazy copy paste. Obviously less if they only use 72 chars. >Each hole in a card represents one bit: It either can be punched, or not punched. The holes in a classic card are arranged in 80 columns and 12 rows. 80 x 12 = 960, so the most amount of information that possibly could be stored on one card is 960 bits, which is equivalent to 120 bytes.
It doesn't work like that because punching too many holes would make the card very weak.
So instead they only punched a couple of holes per column, allowing for one character per column.
This way they could also print the data contained on the card in ink to make it easily human readable.
I'm not 100% sure but I think a character was 6 bits, so that would bake it 80x6 = 480 bits.
Note that 80 characters per line later became the standard for computer screens.
2 weeks ago
Anonymous
>punching too many holes would make the card very weak
That was often called "lace."
It brings back memories of scantron cards for multiple choice tests, but I doubt the old wizards who ever used these things for programming visit this place.
No I'm actually wondering how old you are, I didn't know they ever taught using punch cards in school. was it for smaller computers? also suicide is Haram and I'm straight, so why would I be suicidal?
ACHTUNG!
ALLES TURISTEN UND NONTEKNISCHEN LOOKENSPEEPERS!
DAS KOMPUTERMASCHINE IST NICHT FÜR DER GEFINGERPOKEN UND MITTENGRABEN! ODERWISE IST EASY TO SCHNAPPEN DER SPRINGENWERK, BLOWENFUSEN UND POPPENCORKEN MIT SPITZENSPARKEN.
IST NICHT FÜR GEWERKEN BEI DUMMKOPFEN. DER RUBBERNECKEN SIGHTSEEREN KEEPEN DAS COTTONPICKEN HÄNDER IN DAS POCKETS MUSS.
ZO RELAXEN UND WATSCHEN DER BLINKENLICHTEN.
They spent a lot of time thinking everything out ahead of time and writing it all out on paper. Iterative programming with trial and error was discouraged as each iteration could take weeks depending on the availability of computer time, which itself was very expensive. It was better to spend 100 hours reasoning about a bit of code on paper and through discussion than it was to enter it into the computer and see what came out. Flowcharts like pic related were used by serious computer scientist while creating programs. Now you might see one during an introduction to high level language class to teach some basic concepts but otherwise they're obsolete.
Now that you think of it, when I was starting out doing FPGA things, that was exactly what was going through my mind. The good news is we do have hardware simulators, but you really do have to plan your day around builds.
That particular computer used punched tape, instead of punch cards. You had to use a special console that looked like a typewriter to create the holes on the punch tape, it wasn't something you'd do by hand. The nice thing was that you could put an entire program on one tape and then put it on its own reel. You could use scotch tape to make programs out of multiple punch tapes. You could use scissors to cut out sections or just trim off the extra tape for use by other programs.
Bill Gates' infamous 'Open Letter to Hobbyists' was in regards to his anger that people were making copies of the punched tape Altair BASIC he and Paul Allen had written instead of buying it from them.
there is something about this paper tape, it really looks good idk. simultaneously input for a mechanical device and for a computing device, a finite state machine
there is something about this paper tape, it really looks good idk. simultaneously input for a mechanical device and for a computing device, a finite state machine
Before computers the tape on the left was also used for long distance communication.
The "typewriter" is called a teletype.
>Bill Gates' infamous 'Open Letter to Hobbyists' was in regards to his anger that people were making copies of the punched tape Altair BASIC he and Paul Allen had written instead of buying it from them.
No, it was reverse psychology applied to the developers to make them copy it even more.
Because do you really believe that Bill Gates the poker player gets emotional towards the public?
Even after his career, he is still underestimated.
Not really a good analogy, since the computer has a fixed instruction set, whereas an FPGA is programmed by lookup tables (automated by machine, thankfully).
Yes. My grandma operated computers using punch cards. My grandpa installed and repaired teletype machines. It didn't occur to me until after they passed away that they were the IT professionals of their age.
ENIAC was especially crazy. It was programmed through a combination of changing the plug cables on the left into different combinations along with setting the dials on the right. No cards, no table, no disk, just cables and dials. No way to save a program. At most, you could write down the position of all the cables and the settings of all the dials and use that again later to "reload" the program and data.
Same way we do, with binary numbers representing OPcodes for operations we want to execute. The difference is they had to physically punch holes in rows on a sheet of paper (punch card) to represent a binary number.
Hence bugs being literal bugs getting into the machine and fucking up the readings, and patches being literal patches they put on the punch cards to "unpunch" holes.
Kids these days don't know who good they have it. Imagine having to turn in this assignment.
*drops it*
The diagonal line is how they cope with putting it back together.
why are there no numbers on each card?
It'd be faster to just stack them like they are in the picture and make the line line up than read the shittily printed numbers on the face of each card.
It's even faster to put a rubber band around them and put it in a container so it doesn't scatter in the first place.
Ah, apparently there were machines for sorting them, if you were lucky enough to own one.
>Many programming languages were designed specifically so that lines of code would be a maximum of 72 characters long; the extra 8 characters on a punched card would be completely ignored. This meant that programmers could punch a sequence number on each card, so that if they were ever dropped they could run them through a collating machine to sort them into order. Collating machines were big expensive luxuries that most installations didn't have.
how much storage would this represent?
One card = 80 bytes
So probably much less than one 1.44mb floppy disk
so my magnus opium would only need 5 pages
assuming our hypothetical computer has C standard library built in
SO had the answer so lazy copy paste. Obviously less if they only use 72 chars.
>Each hole in a card represents one bit: It either can be punched, or not punched. The holes in a classic card are arranged in 80 columns and 12 rows. 80 x 12 = 960, so the most amount of information that possibly could be stored on one card is 960 bits, which is equivalent to 120 bytes.
So times that by the number of cards.
It doesn't work like that because punching too many holes would make the card very weak.
So instead they only punched a couple of holes per column, allowing for one character per column.
This way they could also print the data contained on the card in ink to make it easily human readable.
I'm not 100% sure but I think a character was 6 bits, so that would bake it 80x6 = 480 bits.
Note that 80 characters per line later became the standard for computer screens.
>punching too many holes would make the card very weak
That was often called "lace."
Man this brings back memories in school.
It brings back memories of scantron cards for multiple choice tests, but I doubt the old wizards who ever used these things for programming visit this place.
how old are you grandpa
older than you'll ever be, my suicidal zoomer
No I'm actually wondering how old you are, I didn't know they ever taught using punch cards in school. was it for smaller computers? also suicide is Haram and I'm straight, so why would I be suicidal?
Imagine the smell
>mildew and paper mites
They drank a lot of coffee and searched StackOverflow.
chatgpt 0.4
Imagine how comfy it would be to sit with the Port-A-Punch in bed, and get some quality coding done.
ACHTUNG!
ALLES TURISTEN UND NONTEKNISCHEN LOOKENSPEEPERS!
DAS KOMPUTERMASCHINE IST NICHT FÜR DER GEFINGERPOKEN UND MITTENGRABEN! ODERWISE IST EASY TO SCHNAPPEN DER SPRINGENWERK, BLOWENFUSEN UND POPPENCORKEN MIT SPITZENSPARKEN.
IST NICHT FÜR GEWERKEN BEI DUMMKOPFEN. DER RUBBERNECKEN SIGHTSEEREN KEEPEN DAS COTTONPICKEN HÄNDER IN DAS POCKETS MUSS.
ZO RELAXEN UND WATSCHEN DER BLINKENLICHTEN.
I'm going to do the AoC puzzles on punch cards for a simulated EDSAC computure.
carefully
They spent a lot of time thinking everything out ahead of time and writing it all out on paper. Iterative programming with trial and error was discouraged as each iteration could take weeks depending on the availability of computer time, which itself was very expensive. It was better to spend 100 hours reasoning about a bit of code on paper and through discussion than it was to enter it into the computer and see what came out. Flowcharts like pic related were used by serious computer scientist while creating programs. Now you might see one during an introduction to high level language class to teach some basic concepts but otherwise they're obsolete.
those times where real engineering was done instead of just hacking around until programs sort of work.
>but otherwise they're obsolete.
I still draw diagrams like these when building complex state machines for FPGAS.
with the compile time on those things it might as well be a punch card.
Now that you think of it, when I was starting out doing FPGA things, that was exactly what was going through my mind. The good news is we do have hardware simulators, but you really do have to plan your day around builds.
That particular computer used punched tape, instead of punch cards. You had to use a special console that looked like a typewriter to create the holes on the punch tape, it wasn't something you'd do by hand. The nice thing was that you could put an entire program on one tape and then put it on its own reel. You could use scotch tape to make programs out of multiple punch tapes. You could use scissors to cut out sections or just trim off the extra tape for use by other programs.
Bill Gates' infamous 'Open Letter to Hobbyists' was in regards to his anger that people were making copies of the punched tape Altair BASIC he and Paul Allen had written instead of buying it from them.
there is something about this paper tape, it really looks good idk. simultaneously input for a mechanical device and for a computing device, a finite state machine
Before computers the tape on the left was also used for long distance communication.
The "typewriter" is called a teletype.
Here is someone using one as a Linux terminal:
>Bill Gates' infamous 'Open Letter to Hobbyists'
Exhibit A.
A ground level apartment in this building used to be the headquarters of Micro-Soft. Say something nice about it.
Let's see Paul Allen's BASIC.
>Bill Gates' infamous 'Open Letter to Hobbyists' was in regards to his anger that people were making copies of the punched tape Altair BASIC he and Paul Allen had written instead of buying it from them.
No, it was reverse psychology applied to the developers to make them copy it even more.
Because do you really believe that Bill Gates the poker player gets emotional towards the public?
Even after his career, he is still underestimated.
Why are you buying farmland?
Wouldn't it be comparable to a really shitty fpga?
Not really a good analogy, since the computer has a fixed instruction set, whereas an FPGA is programmed by lookup tables (automated by machine, thankfully).
They never cooooded with these, they programmed with these
back then programming was a women's job
Yes. My grandma operated computers using punch cards. My grandpa installed and repaired teletype machines. It didn't occur to me until after they passed away that they were the IT professionals of their age.
>This is how.
This is even easier than if the transistors were as small as they are now, because it makes it easier to see the overview.
Go learn about programmable looms.and then algorithms.
Not kidding. It's just using moving parts to do math and working up from there.
ENIAC was especially crazy. It was programmed through a combination of changing the plug cables on the left into different combinations along with setting the dials on the right. No cards, no table, no disk, just cables and dials. No way to save a program. At most, you could write down the position of all the cables and the settings of all the dials and use that again later to "reload" the program and data.
how do you make this thing print hello world
That is called a hardcoded memory.
newfags and their punch-cards...
>starts project
>never finishes
>starts another project
>never finishes
Babbage invented GitHub repos in the early 19th century.
at least he had qtpi Ada to do his tables