Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Ah, the wonders of the Internet. Ask any weird-arse question, and 
> *somebody* will know the answer! :-D

Thinking on it, the difference was speed. Was it a mechanical card reader or 
an optical card reader.  Did it shine light thru the holes? Then you could 
slide a stack of cards past pretty much as fast as you want, which was good 
if you had a giant IBM or something and you wanted to do lots of processing. 
Otherwise, it was cheaper to build a mechanical reader, with pins that would 
complete circuits thru the holes in the card, which obviously meant moving 
the cards slower. If your machine was sufficiently slow, there was no point 
in having a faster card-reader.  I only worked with the slow ones.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Linux: Now bringing the quality and usability of
   open source desktop apps to your personal electronics.

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