Saturday, February 10, 2007

Stroll Down Memory Lane

When I first started studying computer programming, the second computer I used was a very early DEC (pre-VAX model).

Instead of using punched paper cards like the mainframe did, you had to punch your programs onto paper tapes that were fed into the computer. The answers were punched out on another paper tape and you had to read the holes to figure out if the answers were right or not.

This pattern reminds me of those old paper tapes, something I haven't thought of for over 20 years.

2 comments:

Helen said...

Looks a bit like Braille, but indented. I remember we had to do some programming in PORTRAN when we were in our last year of high school maths. Look at us now!!

MG Quilts said...

It actually is the pattern on the bottom of the toilet doors at the National Museum in Canberra. When I was there I kept thinking back to when I was in graduate school. Then it dawned on me why ...