IBM punch cards supported 120 characters - Generally though, 80 were reserved for code and the other 40 were used for things like line numbers/indexing up front and line comments at the end. No, I didn't actually program with punch cards - my college had a bunch of ancient machines lying around and one of my first professors made us all copy a simple "hello world" program he had written on them just to get the experience of what it was like.
That is not what the IBM punch cards I used when programming. They were 80 columns, with some columns in the beginning and at the end reserved for special use (depending upon language). They were use for special macnines (card sorters) or to mark changes to the card (ie: a line change added to the deck).
Oh no! (Score:1)
Just my 2 cents
Re: (Score:2)
IBM punch cards supported 120 characters - Generally though, 80 were reserved for code and the other 40 were used for things like line numbers/indexing up front and line comments at the end.
No, I didn't actually program with punch cards - my college had a bunch of ancient machines lying around and one of my first professors made us all copy a simple "hello world" program he had written on them just to get the experience of what it was like.
Re:Oh no! (Score:2)