At 16:28 -0600 on 08/30/2013, Paul Gilmartin wrote about Re: Sortlessness?:
On 2013-08-30 16:04, zMan wrote:
If you need one, there's always
http://www.ebay.com/itm/IBM-Model-83-Punch-Card-Sorter-/300954726197?pt=US_Vintage_Computers_Mainframes&hash=item46124caf35
And it operates in time linear with respect to the size of
the input data set, implying that for a sufficiently large
input data set it will outperform most competing technologies.
-- gil
I think that should be "it operates in time linear with respect to the size of
the input data set TIMES THE LENGTH OF THE SORT FIELD". IOW: The
actual time (ignoring the time it takes to collect the 12 stacks of
cards and putting them back into the feed tray for sorting on the
next column) is the same as a single column/pass sort of a deck whose
size is X times as large (where X is the number of columns you are
sorting on).
