On 2026-03-01 12:32 p.m., Bill Degnan via cctalk wrote:
And to be clear, I am not saying, OS's were *never* stored on
punchcards. I am sure it made sense sometimes. I was thinking that
today, most punchcards you come upon will not have an OS on them.
Most often punchcards were used for data or programs
Important cards like the bootstrap, may have been kept in a safe place.
I remember reading that the OS for the IBM-1130 was cross-assembled from
a IBM-360.Who would keep the source in that case?
A assembler, FORTRAN compiler, and batch monitor was often the only
programs a OS had.
Classic Operating Systems: From Batch Processing to Distributed Systems,
by Brinch Hansen may be online still.
Ben.
