Back in my day we programmed with a stick and clay, and liked it

[kriesel]

Originally Posted by xilman

And you try telling the kids of today that, and they won't believe you.

It wasn't so hard, if they were in closed 2000-card cardboard boxes, inside a synthetic fabric backpack, and the air and fabric was cold enough. New falling snow bounced right off while bicycling miles to campus. The trick was kicking the bicycle out from under me at the start of a skid on iced pavement hidden under snow, and trotting to a stop gradually, with that backpack as ballast strapped over a long winter coat, then returning for the bike. That was around the time ARPANet went operational. (Think internet, but <100 hosts, and funded by the military.)
Not many years before that, my grandparents had a hand-cranked wall mounted phone, on a party line serving an area that was probably a square mile or more. So no, kids, we couldn't just upload programs through our phones.

[PhilF]

Man. We *really are* just a bunch of old farts, aren't we?

[chalsall]

Originally Posted by PhilF

Man. We *really are* just a bunch of old farts, aren't we?

For many of us here, yes.

But that just means we might know a thing or two about how things actually work...

[kriesel]

One of my early encounters with computers was via a high school teacher acquiring a card reader, for hand-punched cards using a stylus to poke out individual scored cells (bits) in special cards. IIRC that setup cost the school ~$3000 ~40 years ago when that was real money, comparable to a new family car.

[PhilF]

In Jr. High I had an electronics class, and the teacher was teaching us the formulas for capacitive and inductance reactance. So I went to the teletype terminal in the school's office and programmed the formulas in BASIC (then stored it on paper tape, of course), then had it do my capacitive and inductive reactance homework.

But when I handed it in the teacher rejected it. He said it was "cheating".

[Uncwilly]

Originally Posted by kriesel

hand-punched cards using a stylus to poke out individual scored cells (bits) in special cards. IIRC that setup cost the school ~$3000 ~40 years ago when that was real money, comparable to a new family car.

Y'all were doing punch cards in 1981? Hadn't you heard of DOS, Apple II, or the Vic20?

[chalsall]

Originally Posted by Uncwilly

Y'all were doing punch cards in 1981? Hadn't you heard of DOS, Apple II, or the Vic20?

Well, yeah...

I "got" my first girlfriend by snail-mailing her a love letter on punch-cards.

True story.

[kriesel]

Originally Posted by Uncwilly

Y'all were doing punch cards in 1981? Hadn't you heard of DOS, Apple II, or the Vic20?

My bad, ~50 years ago for the financial figures and hand punch. Yes, I was still doing punch cards into ~1981 though, as edits to stored-on-hard-disk programs at a timeshared minicomputer facility we used at my first employer after college, an R&D startup with no computer of its own. That facility went from a large keypunch room and no on-disk user storage, to a terminals room with a couple keypunches in one corner during that time period. Card decks were one of the ways COSMIC sold government-developed software. Later, a VAX at my new employer had a tabletop card reader for reading in analysis programs I brought with me when hired. I got a PC in 82 after trying out a friend's AppleII and finding it lacking.

[Dr Sardonicus]

Originally Posted by kriesel

One of my early encounters with computers was via a high school teacher acquiring a card reader, for hand-punched cards using a stylus to poke out individual scored cells (bits) in special cards. IIRC that setup cost the school ~$3000 ~40 years ago when that was real money, comparable to a new family car.

In the year 2000, they used hand-punched cards as ballots in Palm Beach County, Florida. That setup cost a fair bit of time in deciding the election, and led to the popularization of the term "hanging chads."

EDIT: AFAIK the earliest use of punched cards was for weaving.

[chalsall]

Originally Posted by Dr Sardonicus

In the year 2000, they used hand-punched cards as ballots in Palm Beach County, Florida. That setup cost a fair bit of time in deciding the election, and led to the popularization of the term "hanging chads."

That is an important thing to consider in our modern time.

Always be prepared for attacks that make absolutely no sense except for extreme political vectors.

Could we please just all get along? Empirically, no...

[kriesel]

Originally Posted by Dr Sardonicus

In the year 2000, they used hand-punched cards as ballots in Palm Beach County, Florida. That setup cost a fair bit of time in deciding the election, and led to the popularization of the term "hanging chads."

And the cartoon of Florida as Uncle Sam's electile dysfunction.