What do you mean by radix sort? Also, all the sorters I've ever seen had 12
pockets, not 10. The person Howard quoted said "the machine was the size of
a wall. I've never seen a sorter I'd call that big, except a check sorter
when I worked for a bank.
I did lots of sorting the 8 years I was a computer operator. I even used a
360 Mod 20 to sort small decks of cards. It was faster on small decks with
over 10 columns to sort on. I don't remember sorting much alphabetically,
but I'm sure I did it.
Eric Bielefeld
Sr. z/OS Systems Programmer
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
414-475-7434
----- Original Message -----
From: "Howard Brazee" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
And what was the sorter? Ah, the beauties of the radix sort. This beast
put cards into 10 output slots, based on the digit in a specified
column, thus enabling sorting with tab cards and no computers.
Lots of labor, with multiple passes for each column with alphanumeric
- and the machine was the size of a wall - but it was cheaper than
computer time.
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