BBeM: Science & Technology Item

Science & Technology

Paper tape data storage

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Posted by Duff at 3:17 pm (PDT) on Sun May 27, 2012

My first encounter with an actual digital computer was in 1964, when my cousin invited me to his home near Princeton University. He worked at their computer center, which used an IBM mainframe and some others, which probably included a DEC PDP-1. The operators loaded programs into the computers from punched cards, magnetic tape, or perforated paper tape such as that pictured here. They had a game called Spacewar! on paper tape, and I managed to mangle the tape after loading and playing it several times.

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