Talk:2324: Old Days 2

2020-06-25T07:59:42Z

172.68.226.26:

I've gotta try that, see how the ice cream truck guy reacts. Wonder where I can find an ice cream truck though? [[Special:Contributions/172.69.71.16|172.69.71.16]] 23:42, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
: The above is me, wasn't logged in, would I get in trouble for fixing the signature? [[User:Mikemk|Mikemk]] ([[User talk:Mikemk|talk]]) 23:44, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
(@Mikemk, I recon you sorted it by adding what you did. If you'd have just changed things, probably no crime if you explained it in the edit Summary. But I'm just an IP Address, so no authority.) Anyway. The bit about a phone-call stopping all electronic business is obviously rooted in dial-up needing exclusive use of a POTS line, something that only went out with broadband piggy-backing alongside voice-calls, the respective carrier-signals now microfiltered at each end of the house-to-exchange copper cabling to let them coexist over the same circuit without blocking/overwhelming each other. Though, in this comic, it's hyperbole, overly fuzzy memory, leg-pulling and/or an alternate-history being described. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.130|141.101.98.130]] 02:06, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

In the early days (of the ARPAnet) there was actually something that today would be classed as a "cloud service" (before the term was invented) although limited. It was a computer (in Cambridge, MA) funded by ARPA with massive amounts of storage and anybody on the ARPAnet could use it for storage (primary access was through FTP). So, cloud storage but not cloud computing. If you wanted to do something with the data you had to copy the whole file to your local disk, edit it there, and then send it back. The actual bits were stored on magnetic tape and there was an elaborate X/Y mechanism to select a tape and mount it on a tape drive, and later return it to its cubby. [[User:MAP|MAP]] ([[User talk:MAP|talk]]) 02:38, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

"State landline" is reminiscent of the old sailing joke where you'd ask a n00b to bring you 100 feet of shoreline. -- brad

Hm, I'd think that "state landline" is a pun on "state line". [[User:Gvanrossum|Gvanrossum]] ([[User talk:Gvanrossum|talk]]) 04:19, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Also, while mainframes didn't exactly knit sweaters when they ran your code, they *did* produce physical artifacts -- reams of line printer paper. [[User:Gvanrossum|Gvanrossum]] ([[User talk:Gvanrossum|talk]]) 04:21, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

"It's not even likely that any punch patterns used in computer coding would be interpretable as valid sweater-creating instructions." Is anyone up to the challenge? [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 05:04, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Wouldn't a loom produce woven textiles rather than knit garments like sweaters? Seems like an additional layer of tall tales. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.189.179|172.68.189.179]] 06:46, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

It seems to me that the comic is having fun with false etymologies. There is especially one article that 'explains' a lot of idiom (in the sense of making up a fanciful story), which has been debunked by Snopes
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/life-in-the-1500s/ and the comics seems to allude to a similar situation in computer science, which is now old enough that early days are shrouded in a bit of mist out of which selective trivia is remembered (punch cards had something to do with looms) and then put together into a semi-coherent story that no longer reflects reality. (With part of the joke being that many people here will actually still know or even remember what it was really like in the 'early years', but the fewer those become, the more likely it will be that made-up 'origin stories' become accepted as true.

[[Special:Contributions/141.101.69.33|141.101.69.33]] 06:54, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Is there a pun in the title text, regarding double meaning of driver? [[Special:Contributions/172.68.226.26|172.68.226.26]] 07:59, 25 June 2020 (UTC) Eddy

explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:2324: Old Days 2