Slashdot Mirror
When PC Still Means 'Punch Card'
ricst writes: "The New York Times reports that there are stll many applications that use punchcards. "Use what?", you say. Slashdotters not yet in their dotage may have never seen these 80 column Hollerith field cards, or the clunky machines that are still used to punch holes in them. And let's not forget the bizarre JCL (Job Control Language) that's needed to be at the front of the deck. Well... turns out many companies still use them, with slight modifications (like the airlines that print a magnetic strip on them)."
after enough holes get punched in your card you get a free sandwich, right?
...that there are stll many applications that use punchcards.
Like the state-of-art US ellection system...
This reminds me of my Air Force days, when I heard many stories of how the Data Center admins would bring in a large bag of chad and dump it on the table in front of the new guy. They would make him sort it into Classified and Unclassified piles, with the Classified chad being anything with a marking on it. After several hours of tedious work, someone would run by and the breeze would mix it all back together on the table, making the poor Airman do it all over...
I was told that very few realized that they could just treat it *all* as Classified, and burn it. Heh.
Karma: Marginal (mostly due to the border around the website)