On Sat, Dec 12, 2015, Mike wrote: > The one question I do have for the older gentlemen on here is what in the > world did the computers without a screen to look at do? Now I know about the > tape, cassette tape's and even the paper with the hole punches in them but > what kind of applications were they use for? Mathematics or? ? ?
Mike, here's another piece of mailing list netiquette that I think has been mentioned recently but only briefly: when you start a new topic, please do so by sending a brand-new email to [email protected] instead of replying to an existing message. Your question about what earlier computers were like was a good one that brought up some interesting responses, but I fear those messages got ignored by people because they were still shown as replies to this neverending top posting thread (most of which anyone would be 100% justified in throwing in the trash without reading). Sending a new email to start threads not only gives you a good chance to write a subject line that actually describes what you're saying, but it causes decent mail clients to not link the message with earlier ones on another topic. Different email readers do that in different ways -- some just treat any messages with the same subject line as a thread, while some (like mutt, which I use) are happy to ignore subject lines and just go by the reference field in the emails' headers (a field which is often hidden from view). So, by all means, start new discussions. But make sure they're treated as new by emailing [email protected] directly instead of replying. -- Eric Christopherson
