What is this and what is it used for

[Ben]

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@altenbach wrote:

Hey look, I found some blank media 😄

 

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I think I can still find some of the round cases we used to store "programs" save to paper tape. I may even have some of the patch tape that we would use when we to repair the paper tape.

Useless trivia...

never try to punch mylar tape with an ASR 33.

Very bad idea.

Ben

[LV_Pro]

See, now we must explain that in later days, particularly in industrial environments (Numerical Controlled Machine Tools, predating CNC machines) that punched tape largely went from paper to mylar, not as susceptible to water, or cutting oil. Nice and rugged, but as you point out, much to tough to punch on the Teletype model ASR33 punch, would really mess things up.

I really was cooking when we got an optical tape reader, much better than the electromechanical ones (they had little "feeler wires" than would fall through the holes in the tape, making contact, indicating that "bit" was punched). They ran orders of magnitude faster than the mechanical ones, were more reliable as well. I had to go into the lab of a local steel mill to clean there mechanical one, the crud in the air (and on everything, and in your lungs) would make it unreliable pretty quickly.

Now ask me about when we chisled the holes in the rock tablets for the earlier computers.... Actually, molding the counter pieces in clay for the abacus was fun! 😉

[Ben]

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@LV_Pro wrote:

See, now we must explain that in later days,...

Now ask me about when we chisled the holes in the rock tablets for the earlier computers.... Actually, molding the counter pieces in clay for the abacus was fun! 😉

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I used to explain data storage in terms of how long the data would be preserved. It went;

Bit in a register

Computer memory

Disk drive

Tape drive

Paper

Papyrus

Stone

So my better-half and I attended a seminar by the local beer brewing groups. They ran to gambit from nut case "I harvest my own yeast with a mason jar in my herb garden", through normal hobby brewer then formal chemical engineering and eventually to the guy with the fully automated brewery in his basement where he "engineers his own water" starting with reverse osmosis and then adds components to get water that tastes like it came from a stream in England.

When I saw the picture of his basement I asked him "Is that a custom touch panel control application I see there?" He said yes. Turns out there were four people (counting myself and my wife) at that event that knew what LabVIEW was.

I bring this up because they spoke of some trivia and cuniform (sp?) writing on clay tablets. They claimed that the earliest example of examples of the clay tablets was actually a recipe to make beer. I asked "How do we tell if writing was invented because they needed a way to save their beer recipes?" Neccessity is after all the mother of invention.

Ben

[JÞB]

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@Jacobson-ni wrote:

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@Ben wrote:

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I have not had to resort to any artificial means to deal with bugs getting at my gardens. Now if I could only find a praying mantis large enough to keep ground hogs and Bambi under control. 

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I've seen enough bad movies to know that this won't end well. In fact...

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Yup, That files right under the heading

"Things you may not know"

Creepy! 

[Blokk]

Bit in a register

Computer memory

Disk drive

Tape drive

Paper

Papyrus

Stone

I read somewhere that tape drives still the most reliable long term storage method. What is next? DNA storage?