OLD DAYS

[Toby Fisher]

On Tue, 21 May 2002, Janina Sajka wrote:

> Cecil:
>
> >From one point of view it may be sad that the U.S. Navy would
> still be using paper tape in some places. But, from another
> vantage point, it's remarkable and speaks volumes. Can you image
> our friends in Redmont building systems that would still chug
> along cruncing away happily after 30 or 40 years? Heck, after 30
> years of M$ upgrades, you wouldn't be able to read all that
> ancient data anymore with the proprietary OS.

Actually, it has another advantage as well, paper tape is not vulnerable
to the EM pulses that come with nuclear weapons.  This is why some fighter
aircraft still run on ferite core memory.

Cheers.

-- 
Toby Fisher	Email: toby at g0ucu.freeserve.co.uk
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