>> It still somewhat blows my mind that you could do anything useful with
>> so little memory. Presumably for processing large datasets, most of
>> the data at any one time would be in secondary storage?
>
> Large datasets then were also very tiny compared to large datasets of
> today. :)
Sure. But 1MB is such a tiny amount of memory, it could only hold a few
thousand records (depending on their size). It would almost be faster to
process them by hand then go to all the trouble of punching cards and
feeding them through a computer. So it must have been possible to
process larger datasets than that somehow.
> see the revolution that were programs like ed (and its successor vi) in
> bringing flexible terminal text editing rather than wasting tons of
> paper... :)
...not to mention card...
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
Post a reply to this message
|