Path: news.eternal-september.org!eternal-september.org!feeder3.eternal-september.org!border-4.nntp.ord.giganews.com!border-2.nntp.ord.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!Xl.tags.giganews.com!local-4.nntp.ord.giganews.com!news.giganews.com.POSTED!not-for-mail NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 12 Apr 2025 02:00:32 +0000 Subject: Re: Reading is fundemental... Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.misc References: From: c186282 Date: Fri, 11 Apr 2025 22:00:05 -0400 User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:78.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/78.13.0 MIME-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed Content-Language: en-US Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Message-ID: Lines: 33 X-Usenet-Provider: http://www.giganews.com X-Trace: sv3-MYNjNZlRtAvTk6apEMm7E6anrLUXvXn4L5VzkvV8g8B9l+KSnhbgF3Jt5jLFXSLyBlfO5mTDbbcAiNa!owauZwBYPcUDqZjVOhDyqKizwKmYtjEvz7rjbRgDft7KejndHiB9LvawqtaHKX0lQWOjkPSAyCp3 X-Complaints-To: abuse@giganews.com X-DMCA-Notifications: http://www.giganews.com/info/dmca.html X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly X-Postfilter: 1.3.40 On 4/11/25 5:05 PM, c186282 wrote: > On 4/11/25 5:20 AM, Popping Mad wrote: >> https://slate.com/human-interest/2024/02/literacy-crisis-reading-comprehension-college.html >> >> > >   I thought it was about being able to read paper >   data tapes by eye :-) Hmmm ... researching ... paper data tapes go back all the way to 1725 - to run automated cloth looms. The PROBLEM was that the tapes back then were kinda fragile and there was no good way to fix them. Jacquard is commonly credited - but HIS innovation was to switch from tapes to wider, physically linked, paper-ish data CARDS. Those were strong enough to hold up AND you could de-chain, insert new cards, and put the chain together again. "RAM" -vs- ROM so to speak. Jacquard inspired BABBAGE ... who designed the first real computers - albeit in brass gears. Poor bastard HAD IT RIGHT - but didn't live quite long enough to see electric/electronic solutions. Oh, according to story, Jacquard was just the company OWNER ... some OTHER, unnamed, guy thought up the cards and mechanism and did all the programming. SO typical ...