Computer Potpourri I (The Early Decades) Quiz

Answer: ANSI

ANSI is the "American National Standards Institute" which is a standards organization responsible for many of the computer standards in use today; including ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) which is used on most UNIX style computers and MS Windows computers. EBCDIC (pronounced ebb-see-dick) is the standard on many IBM mainframe computers. Both ASCII and EBCDIC are 8-bit character standards. SIXBIT is a 6-bit character standard that was used by many Digital Equipment Corp. computers in the '60s and '70s (notably the DEC-10 and DEC-20 mainframes).

Answer: Green

The "green card" was a must for IBM Assembly programmers and to some extent for COBOL programmers also. It listed all the machine language instructions, data formats, special information and other useful items that a programmer would need to quickly reference while writing a program.

Answer: Yellow

As with the 360 series computers, IBM provided a programmer's reference card for the 370 series computer. They chose a different color because many programmers supported both 360 and 370 computers simultaneously, and the colors made it easier to pick up the correct card when needed.

Answer: GOGAL

JOVIAL is used in US Military applications (mostly for flight systems on aircraft). APL (A Programming Language) became popular in the '70s for mathematical programs. ADA (named for Ada Babbage) is a language pushed by the US Government during the '90s in hopes of eliminating bad programming practices. I leave you to guess how well that worked.

Answer: whetstone encoding

Of course, magnetic tapes need to be rewound from time to time. NRZI (Non Return to Zero Inverted) is a method of encoding data on a magnetic tape. Vacuum does not refer to a sweeper to clean the tape. Early reel-to-reel magnetic tape readers pulled long portions of tape into vacuum columns to reduce friction while moving the tape back and forth.

Answer: FORTRAN

FORTRAN hales from the very early days of digital computers. It stands for FORmula TRANslation. Old-timers still write it as FORTRAN because (back before dirt) computers only spoke UPPER CASE. Alas, however, ANSI declared in 1985 that FORTRAN from that time forward should be written as Fortran.

Answer: 960

There are 80 columns and 12 rows on an 80-column punch card. I'll let you do the math.

Answer: 115

Announced March 13, 1973 and withdrawn March 9, 1981.

Answer: 22

The System/360 Model 22 was a general purpose computer that combined intermediate-scale data processing capability with small-system economy. Introduced in 1971, the monthly rental for a typical Model 22 with 24,576 bytes of main storage was about $5,600, with a purchase price of about $246,000.

Answer: Paper tape

Paper tape often had to be read hundreds of times. Normal paper would wear out quickly under these conditions, so the stronger, longer lasting Mylar tape was introduced.

80-column punch cards also came in Mylar versions for special applications, but would never have been used on an IBM 129 because the 129 only had to read a control card once into its memory. Therefore, a standard paper card would last a very long time.