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From: Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid>
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: ALTER, ASSIGN and labels-as-values
Date: Tue, 4 Jun 2024 01:38:04 -0000 (UTC)
Organization: A noiseless patient Spider
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On Mon, 03 Jun 2024 14:11:46 GMT, Scott Lurndal wrote:

> Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> writes:
>
>>On Thu, 30 May 2024 10:15:54 +0200, Terje Mathisen wrote:
>>
>>> This was using hand-punched cards, writing FORTRAN 2 code with the
>>> Hollerith text constants so you had to count very carefully:
>>> 
>>>     FORMAT 27HTHIS IS A VERY LONG TEXT STRING...
>>
>>Hey, did you not notice the columns were numbered? So all you had to do
>>to determine the length of the string was subtract column numbers?
> 
> Aside the fact that you needed to know the length _before_ you punched
> the rest of the "very long text string" on the card?  Or are you
> suggesting that coding forms (which were used for third party punching)
> were a prerequisite for punching program cards?

Of course people used coding forms.