Re: Typing the lexicon(Shoebox history)

At 01:02 25.7.2000 -0400, Roger Mills wrote:
>    There was also a complicated
>system of cards with holes along the top and sides which you punched out for
>the appropriate phoneme/morpheme etc.  To sort out, say, PAST, or PLURAL,
>you ran your wife's knitting needle thru the holes, and every card with PAST
>or PLURAL etc. would fall out.  Who woulda thunk.
My grandfather had a patented system thingy where you could insert the box
with the punched cards, then you depressed the appropriate combi of buttons
on a small keyboard, and it would sort out and present you with the cards
one by one, then put them back.  To punch a card you inserted it under the
keyboard instead.  He kept all his customers, suppliers etc. over a 40 year
period with that thing.  No backups, no crashes, no dying harddisks -- and
a limit of twelve predefined parameters to search for each kind of
data.  Looked like a monstrous cross between a typewriter and a sewing machine!



/BP 8^)>
--
  B.Philip Jonsson mailto:bpX@netg.se mailto:melrochX@mail.com (delete X)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Truth, Sir, is a cow which will give [skeptics] no more milk,
and so they are gone to milk the bull."
                                    -- Sam. Johnson (no rel. ;)