Quote:
Originally Posted by ed good
oh: interesting history.
do you recall if the coding system used for these early cards was based on an 8 bit word or something else?
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it was called (wonder how they came up with this) the Hollerith code
a series of zone and digits - the top three rows of the card were the zones,
the next nine where the digits - so - first zone & first digit was the letter A , zone 1 digit 2 a B and so on.
there were 80 columns in a card
digits only were numbers - odd combinations where special charaters, this code was later able to be translated simply into hexidecimal for the 16 base code in electronic computers.
any more detail that that and most folks will glaze over just before their foreheads hit the key board