From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Barry Margolin Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: editor and word processor history (was: Re: RTF for emacs) Date: Thu, 29 May 2014 19:49:35 -0400 Organization: A noiseless patient Spider Message-ID: References: <87k394mbwd.fsf@debian.uxu> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1401407446 19425 80.91.229.3 (29 May 2014 23:50:46 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 29 May 2014 23:50:46 +0000 (UTC) To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Fri May 30 01:50:39 2014 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1WqA5i-0000n5-0S for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Fri, 30 May 2014 01:50:34 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:50788 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1WqA5g-0004iC-S0 for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Thu, 29 May 2014 19:50:32 -0400 Original-Path: usenet.stanford.edu!news.kjsl.com!feeder.erje.net!eu.feeder.erje.net!eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!barmar.motzarella.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail Original-Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help Original-Lines: 32 Injection-Info: barmar.motzarella.org; posting-host="2be9e9f5dd9af768b8861af71b85fc28"; logging-data="6927"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX18oRDiy18cm8dYJYgGKay+u" User-Agent: MT-NewsWatcher/3.5.3b3 (Intel Mac OS X) Cancel-Lock: sha1:nNdhAuGu25YiK+Da6lam1SvlAkU= Original-Xref: usenet.stanford.edu gnu.emacs.help:205687 X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:97957 Archived-At: In article <87k394mbwd.fsf@debian.uxu>, Emanuel Berg wrote: > Robert Thorpe writes: > > > In those days programs were punched onto cards using > > keypunches or punched onto paper tape. Sometimes > > they were written on paper and someone else would > > punch them in. In those early days editors were > > there to help people fix mistakes afterwards once a > > file existed on a tape or disk. Only later were they > > used for the whole writing process. > > OK, but then how did the data get on the tape/disk in > the first place? IIRC, Teletypes could be put into local mode, where what you typed was punched directly onto the paper tape. For punch cards, there were key punches -- they were essentially typewriters that punched onto cards instead of writing onto paper. The ASCII code for DEL is 127 because that was all the bits on a 7-column paper tape. So if you made a mistake while punching the tape, you could back up and press DEL, and it would punch all the holes in that row -- it was the paper-tape equivalent of White-Out. Applications that read text from paper tape would ignore that code. -- Barry Margolin, barmar@alum.mit.edu Arlington, MA *** PLEASE post questions in newsgroups, not directly to me ***