PeterSommerlad , vor 2 Monaten

@foone
you could fix some small things with sticky paper tape closing holes. but cardboard was too cheap to care.

ChartreuseK , vor 2 Monaten

@foone punch cards, the original WORM disks

phil , vor 2 Monaten

@foone imagine if you will a depuncher

phuzzykins , vor 2 Monaten

@foone Imagining a punchcard eraser that refills all the little holes with paper pulp

rrmutt , vor 2 Monaten

@foone I love telling folks about writing programs on a keypunch: "it had a backspace key but no delete!" -- and watching them as they come to understand exactly why.

TechConnectify , vor 2 Monaten

@foone I submit a Scantron form is a punchcard-RW

foone OP , vor 2 Monaten

@TechConnectify you've got a point yeah

glyph , vor 2 Monaten

@foone @TechConnectify I have actually wondered about this before: how come Scantron never got used in this way? It would seem like a pretty big cost reduction and time saver if you had an error in your deck. Did the tech not temporally overlap?

eplotner , vor 2 Monaten

@foone WORM cards.

foone OP , vor 2 Monaten

this is a shitpost of course but it's actually pretty accurate in how punchcards and CD-Rs worked.

They both are sold with them being all 1s/all 0s, and then you can selectively change some of the bits to encode something into them

foone OP , vor 2 Monaten

but you can only go in one direction, 1->0 or 0->1 depending, and you can't go back.

alexandria , vor 2 Monaten

@foone in this way, punchcards, are, a lot like time

makes u think

moira , vor 2 Monaten

@foone what I hear is nanoraptor needs to make an IBM card depuncher unit someday

jepyang , vor 2 Monaten

@foone If only we could patch CD-Rs…

kevswims , vor 2 Monaten

@foone and modern flash kinda sucks because it still basically has this problem. Real easy to go from 1 to 0, but a lot harder to go back the other direction.

nyrath , vor 2 Monaten

@foone

But you can have a bit of both 1 & 0 if you have a hanging chad...

foone OP , vor 2 Monaten

@nyrath yeah, I'm non-binary, so I know all about that! :)

otte_homan , vor 2 Monaten

@foone sticky tape to the rescue ...

brektyme , vor 2 Monaten

@foone wouldn't be more like they had quntaum superposition, and became a 1 or a 0 when used?

realtime , vor 2 Monaten

@foone do CDRs have the issue with pregnant chads?

PJ_Evans , vor 2 Monaten

@foone
Trying to explain punchcards (and keypunches) to people who have never used one...

crobbler , vor 2 Monaten

@foone It's the data equivalent of finding the sculpture already trapped inside the block of marble.