Back in the 80's, give or take a decade, but I think early 80's, there
was a machine, might have been the IBM System 3 or one of it's
relatives, that used a 96 col card. I never really caught on, at least
the card didn't, because it was only about 3" or 3 1/2" long and maybe 2
1/2" high. I think the reason was because they didn't stick up in your
shirt pocket behind your plastic pocket protector to announce that you
were a computer geek and they didn't have enough room for a good sized
grocery list--at least when the list would be started with essentials
such as:
12 pack beer
donuts
Jack Daniels Black Label
wine.
Jim
Stephen Frazier wrote:
The way I heard it was that there were 80 questions on the 1900 census. Machines were built to
process the census data. As the machines were there they got used for other things.
RPN01 wrote:
I’m not sure why Mr. Hollerith chose 80 columns, but
it has really hung on.
--
Jim Bohnsack
Cornell University
(607) 255-1760
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
