27 Oct
2006
27 Oct
'06
12:21 p.m.
On 27 Oct 2006 at 18:34, Roger Holmes wrote:
BCD is not just a bit coding, its a card code as well.
It lacks things
like parentheses and brackets but has things like 1/4, 1/2 and 3/4.
My 1301 uses it, though strangely there is not a one to one mapping
from characters from the card reader to characters on the line
printer!
Was it Edgars Dijkstra who railed on at length about the 1620 being
able to read characters from cards that it couldn't detect the
presence of nor print? An example is the character ',' read from
the punch numerically (0-8-3). Deposited as 821 and tests as a
record mark, but a record mark is 82. No way to generate 821 nor
distinguish it from 82. And no way to print or punch it numerically.
If you can't tell, I have a soft spot in my heart for the lowly Cadet
(Can't Add; Doesn't Even Try). :)
Cheers,
Chuck