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From: "Carlos E. R." <robin_listas@es.invalid>
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.misc,comp.unix.shell
Subject: Re: [OT] Punch card times (was Re: Taking Speedy too seriously)
Date: Sat, 31 Oct 2026 20:08:34 +0100
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On 2026-10-31 16:42, Janis Papanagnou wrote:
> On 2026-10-31 11:49, Carlos E. R. wrote:
>> [...] So, when I arrived to Madrid for my second year (I think that 
>> was in the 83), a friend told me that the computer building that was 
>> shared by all in the campus had switched from cards to terminals, and 
>> that I had just missed it.
>>
>> And he described me the nightmare that first/second year students had 
>> to suffer to get their stack of cards punched and executed. Could take 
>> days.
> 
> Strong words. And absurd time scales. They certainly don't match my
> observations. All of us did our punch cards based coding often just
> during the pauses between the lectures; the basic code maybe in an
> hour, the fixes - usually just one or two iterations needed - done
> during the "cum tempore" 10 minutes. But most programming in those
> early beginner courses also wasn't too voluminous, to be fair.
> 
> What certainly was painful was the (for obvious reasons) inherent
> non-existence of a <Del> or <Backspace> key on the punch devices.
> (They had a useful "Copy" key (<Dup>?), though.)[*]

I don't remember if my friend punched his own code, or had it punched. 
Would depend on how many punch machines they had for lowly students.

I remember his saying that he had to submit his stack of cards to a 
clerk, then given a paper slip to collect the results another day.

...

-- 
Cheers,
        Carlos E.R.
        ES🇪🇸, EU🇪🇺.