Related question for old data media enjoyers: I have extremely vague memories of a computer I used as a kid that had a punchcard like system where the holes had colored cellophane or something in them, presumably to add a few more bits of data per hole. I think the cards were probably some sort of plastic or maybe laminated paper? Has anyone heard of something like this?

[–] ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net 5 points 4 days ago (1 children)

[–] BartyDeCanter@piefed.social 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Nice, but it wasn’t a viewmaster. Similar idea, but it was an actual computer of some sort.

[–] ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net 4 points 3 days ago (1 children)

What you're describing sounds very weird because punchcards are mechanical media and colored cellophane would be optical. We didn't have any popular optical media until CDs. I think using optical media to store the extremely limited amount of data something like punchcard can store makes no sense.

[–] Nouvellalia@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago

It only really made sense as a way to give slides meant for human viewing, computerized data for sorting, filling, or otherwise using simultaneously with the slide. Like, a picture of an engineering diagram, patent, survey site, military target, etc.

Before we could store a picture as raw binary data, this was an interesting way to fill the need to digitally notate images. Punch cards like this were definitely in use for a while. I have a post above with an image.

[–] Nouvellalia@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

I've seen punch cards where the optical media meant to be illuminated and projected for people to see, was accompanied by punched information for a computer to read. They were both on the same punch card. I want to say the USGS, the patent office, the army, and maybe Bell systems used these at some points?

I think this may be what you remember? I've never seen one where the holes carried a few extra bits of color information though. I do not think that existed on an industrial scale. Was it in a niche children's toy?

Edit: found an image of the ones I was referring to

[–] BartyDeCanter@piefed.social 2 points 3 days ago

I finally figured out what it was, though embarrassingly I found out it wasn’t a punchcard, but a colored card with a barcode on the back.

https://hackaday.com/2020/04/27/teardown-vtech-whiz-kid-luggable-computer/