this post was submitted on 02 Dec 2023
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It’s futuristic punchcards. We’ve come full circle.
always was.
Pretty much, yeah! CDs and blu-rays aren’t all that different from punch cards, as the data is literally stored as indentations on the disc with a reflective layer. Arguably CD-RWs are kind of different as they change the reflectivity of a material itself… Hard drives and floppies are maaaaybe slightly different too because they use changes in magnetism instead of physical indentations too. You could probably argue that flash and DRAM aren’t glorified punchcards? But I mean, ultimately all data is stored in a physical medium somehow so it’s always going to have some resemblance!
Tapes and spinning disks were futuristic magnetized wire.
Or even eched tablets, we've double backed on the full circle.
"Alright class, pull out your chisel and slate.."
Sounds like it would be difficult to rewrite/edit the data?
A punchcard is two dimensional. Actually you can have multiple dimensions on a punch card, the positions of the card can store different data and you can determine what that is by the position of holes on another part of the card.
Whereas a paper tape, or a magnetic tape is serial and has only one dimension (you can divide the tape into different bands though).