Re: Capitalization of language names (was: Newbie in ADA...)

["David Thompson" <david.thompson1@worldnet.att.net>]

Anders Wirzenius <anders.wirzenius@pp.qnet.fi> wrote :
> Jeffrey L. Susanj wrote in message ...
>
> >processing.  So, all things computer would be in all caps.  Question, did
> >keypunches have mixed case or only upper?
>
> Some had, some had not. On some machines you could choose what you wanted.

Keypunches?  Certainly not the IBM line (024, 026, 029);
they had only uppercase on Alpha shift with digits and
most punctuation on Numeric shift, somewhat like
3-row (aka Baudot/5-level) Teletypes of the day
(but not the same keyboard layout; Teletype put
the digits across QWERTY, keypunch on the
right-hand fingers M,.JKLUIO adding-machine style).

There were card _codes_ for lowercase that could be
punched out from and read into the computer (usually
only with certain special programs though).  But I
never saw any keypunch that would punch them
(except by manually multipunching).

> Some had the text printed in lower cases in the upper edge of the card but
> the holes was the ASCII (Ascii?) number of upper case letters.
>
029s at least did optionally print along the upper edge,
but always uppercase on all machines I know of.  This
was called "interpreting".  I don't recall for sure if there
was an option to leave out the interpreter entirely, but
there probably was; there was definitely a switch to
turn it off; and at most shops there were some machines
at any time that had it temporarily broken.

The card code was/is completely unrelated to ASCII.
It was often called Hollerith, although I believe the code
actually designed by Hollerith on early (precomputer)
tabulating machinery was somewhat different (just as
the code now commonly called Morse code is not that
originally designed by Samuel Morse, who probably
wasn't really the inventor of the telegraph anyway).
The card code does translate simply to EBCDIC or
its predecessor BCDIC, but is not identical to them;
AFAICR in IBM manuals it was always just called
"card code", but remember these are the same folks
who religiously talked about "storage" not "memory".

> (The content of the holes that were punched out was a popular surrogate for
> rice at weddings.)
>
Which, like the round holes similarly punched from
paper tape, are called "chad", until last year's Florida
fiasco a nicely obscure piece of technical jargon.

--
- David.Thompson 1 now at worldnet.att.net