Talk:Computer programming in the punched card era

I think the following needs to be updated. I don't think the use of "geeks" is appropriate.

Dedicated geeks of the era might stay up all night to get a few quick turn-arounds in the early morning hours -- otherwise unavailable, using this very expensive equipment -- mainframe computer usage was measured in seconds per job, and every job was charged to an account.(167.1.150.241 (talk) 20:49, 8 January 2009 (UTC))

The punched card era encompassed the paper tape era
Seems to me that some paper tape details should be added to this article and it should be renamed "the punched paper era"--partially because I don't think "programming in the paper tape era" deserves its own article. Paper tape and punched cards overlapped significantly, were concurrent choices, and each had pluses and minuses. TECO (from which Emacs was derived) was invented precisely to edit paper tapes (by editing forward from beginning to end), and the line by line vs character stream ideas about text files are quite prevalent in the history of von Neumann machines, with vestiges still extant today, unix vs. mainframes, and with vi being the outgrowth of the "by line" view. 96.224.32.111 (talk) 18:05, 14 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Both preceded the computer era, and both were still in use until the early 1980s. Punched cards go back to large-scale data tabulation projects (such Hollerith's work on the 1890 U.S. Census) and predominated in the world of mainframes/batch, while paper-tape went back to telecommunications systems (Baudot codes and such) and was more associated with minicomputers/timesharing. The punch card was more iconic in the 1960s ("Do not fold, spindle, or mutilate") and still today... AnonMoos (talk) 12:31, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

Bad
Even after the "geeks" edit it still reads like a rambling anecdote, as does the rest of the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mcsteez (talk • contribs) 11:42, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

Nostalgia
Yes, I remember it well: Software development in the 1960's and early 1970's. Was I sorry when direct connection to a computer replaced it? Hell No! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.29.85.172 (talk) 22:59, 22 January 2017 (UTC)