I think you should all count yourselves lucky.
When I was a student we had to type out our programs on to punch cards. Then fasten them together in the correct order with an elastic band and put them in the in-tray in the computer department.
One or two days later we would return to collect our cards plus a few sheets of lineprinter paper output unless our programs failed to compile in which case we just had an error code printed on the card (not sure now what form the error report took - it WAS a LONG time ago
).
Programs could fail because of a
"parity error" (e.g. one of the punched holes hadn't had the card removed cleanly) or a more familiar "syntax error" (very often something silly like a colon [ : ] instead of a semicolon [ ; ]). You would then have to type out the offending card(s) again and re-submit your job - and wait another 1 or 2 days.
.
Each punched card corresponded to a line of 80 characters - the first 8 often being reserved for line numbers, etc. There was also paper tape which may or may not have been a step forward (I forget which now
).
I now get annoyed if I have to wait for my programs to compile. Perhaps I'm just getting old and impatient?
