From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,808505c9db7d5613 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: bill.williams@gecm.com Subject: Re: Silliness (was: Looking for good Ada95 book) Date: 1996/11/08 Message-ID: #1/1 X-Deja-AN: 195293363 references: <55955a$n04@felix.seas.gwu.edu> organization: GEC-Marconi Research Centre newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: 1996-11-08T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: ok@goanna.cs.rmit.edu.au (Richard A. O'Keefe) writes: > adam@irvine.com (Adam Beneschan) writes: > > >Gee, this thread is making me feel old. Old, because I used to work > >as a COBOL programmer, back when our programs had to be put in on > >punch cards, which couldn't handle lower case at all. So from having > >to work for three years with listings that were constantly shouting at > >me, I should have gone deaf years ago. > > Actually, this is wrong. Punched cards can handle lower case just fine. > Maybe your card _punch_ couldn't, but the punched _cards_ could, and so > could the reader. I still have a couple of old S/370s quickrefs somewhere > (a yellow one and a green one) and they list card codes for all the EBCDIC > characters. That's for 80-column cards; the 96-coumn cards used ASCII. > The problem was most likely your printer. When I was an undergraduate I > used a B6700, which used EBCDIC, so it was quite straightforward to enter > lower case, but our line printers couldn't _print it_. I'm feeling pretty ancient today as well. When I was young and foolish we had hand card punches - a button, attached to a blade for each row on the card. This gives you two reasons for not using lower case: first the printer won't print it anyway, and second your fingers get tied (even more :-) trying to punch the right code. Bill -- Bill Williams |GEC-Marconi does not necessarily GEC-Marconi Research Centre |endorse my opinions! bill.williams@gecm.com Tel: +44 1245 242016 Fax: +44 1245 242003