Subject:
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Re: punch cards (was "Minifig Head w/ Headset Over Brown Hair")
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.geek
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Date:
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Fri, 7 Jun 2002 21:17:11 GMT
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Viewed:
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737 times
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"Franklin W. Cain" wrote:
>
> > > > Uh, why? There isn't a maximum row-width, is there?
> > >
> > > I usually figure 80 columns is the max,
> > > unless a line is required to go longer.
> >
> > The legacy of punched cards :-(
>
> Tell me about it. Sheesh. :-P
>
> Trivia note:
> Punch cards are the size that they are because that was the size
> of the U.S. bills printed by the U.S. Treasury at the time that
> punch cards were invented. What decade/era was this? (Answer
> is below...)
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> Punch cards were _first_ invented in the 1880s!
>
> The first mechanical computer was invented to help the U.S. Census Bureau
> tabulate the results of the 1880 Census. Since the U.S. Treasury had quite a • 1890 (1)
> lot of hoppers and sorters (designed to move, sort, and collate the various
> denominations of U.S. bills), the Census Bureau copied the Treasury's machinery
> (in an all-too-rare example of Government effieciency!), and thus had to create
> the new punch cards in the same size as the dollar bills.
Actually, punch cards were in use before this:
http://www.maxmon.com/1800ad.htm
And other page from that site:
http://www.maxmon.com/1830ad.htm
Would suggest the census computer was not really the first mechanical
computing device, though it perhaps was the first general purpose
machine.
(1) http://www.maxmon.com/1890ad.htm
Frank
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