Punched in the face!
You should know better! The image attached to the Letter of the Month in LXF308 is not of punched cards at all. It is of folded paper tape.
I have attached an image of real punched cards, attributed to use on a DEC PDP9. I do not recall ever working on that model – yes to almost every one of the PDP8 and 11 families, at least one PDP15, every variant of VAX and most Alphas.
The photo is, of course, paper tape. It appears to be six-track, which I’ve never seen. I have used seven and eight-track, even five-track in the early days (1964).
Neil says…
Thanks for the correction John, David and others – you’re obviously absolutely correct. The photo we used doesn’t even look like cards. Not sure what’s going through my brain…
Terminal Format
I have a great deal of sympathy with A Confused of Ross-on-Wye. I have beaten him on age, being 89, rising 90 if I’m spared. I was given a car-boot-load of cardboard boxes back in 1990, and told, “This is your computer.” I found it was an Amstrad, I think, and fortunately the connecting plugs were such that you could only really set it up one way. This I did, switched on and began to learn how to use a computer.
Now I, too, have given up on Windows and run my machines on Linux Mint Cinnamon or LMDE. I can download an ISO, make a bootable USB stick and install the OS without difficulty. I can and do install the programs I want from the software manager or Synaptic Package Manager. Most of the time I can get along quite nicely, but am often stymied by the words “tar”, “gz” or similar. I know I should venture into the terminal – but what to do when I get there? Who will supply the necessary hieroglyphics to make it work?
Linux Format is good for those who speak the language, but for the uninitiated, something like Computeractive would be good. I tried to get it to stop being ‘Windowsactive’ and to include Linux stuff – but failed. Is there a Terminal for Dummies book?
Neil says…
I guess there’s an expectation (in the Linux world) that people will just ‘pick this up’ as they go along. Looking around, there’s not many good beginner guides; there’s lots of guides for developers or administrators, and, of course, the overly meticulous Man system itself.
See https://linuxjourney.com for a modern resource or a more formal guide at https://linuxupskillchallenge. com. An older classic is the online game https://web. mit.edu/mprat/Public/web/Terminus/Web/main.html. From a magazine perspective, we’d have to cover
