What did computers without screens do?

[Mike Stein]

On Sat, Dec 12, 2015, Mike wrote:
> The one question I do have for the older gentlemen on here is what in the world did the computers without a screen to look at do? Now I know about the tape, cassette tape's and even the paper with the hole punches in them but what kind of applications were they use for? Mathematics or? ? ?
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I started in the IT field way back in 1962 working for a service bureau preparing payroll cheques, invoices, the usual accounting reports, market research statistics etc. for clients, and the first time I used a screen-oriented system was when I bought a Commodore PET in 1977; as a matter of fact none of the systems I worked on professionally at that time had screens either and used printing 'terminals' to keep an audit trail of what the operator had entered.

So you can definitely do lots of useful stuff without a screen, although I imagine NetFlix or YouTube on a Selectric terminal might lose something...

m