08 November 2017

4.5 megabytes of data


Stored on 62,500 punched cards (1955).

4 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. Megabytes, most likely. If they are standard IBM cards, each of them contains a maximum of 80 "bytes" (actually, more like "btwelves", as they consist of 12 bits, not 8). So 62,500 full cards would hold 62,500 * 80 = 5,000,000 bytes, or about 4.77 (binary) Megabytes.

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    2. And generally the first 7 bytes were empty and the last was a continuation character so 72 usable bytes makes 4.5MBytes

      However if it's stored as ascii then you dont get a full byte for each character.

      If it was stored as binary then indeed one could get the full 4.77 Megabytes.

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  2. regardless of how many data units that pile physically represents, you would have a heck of a time making sure that they are read in in order.

    I-)

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