eighty-column mind

2 definitions found

eighty-column mind - Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (26 May 2007) :

  eighty-column mind
  
     <abuse> The sort said to be possessed by persons for whom the
     transition from punched card to paper tape was traumatic
     (nobody has dared tell them about disks yet).  It is said that
     these people, including (according to an old joke) the founder
     of IBM, will be buried "face down, 9-edge first" (the 9-edge
     being the bottom of the card).  This directive is inscribed on
     IBM's 1402 and 1622 card readers and is referenced in a famous
     bit of doggerel called "The Last Bug", the climactic lines of
     which are as follows:
  
       He died at the console
       Of hunger and thirst.
       Next day he was buried,
       Face down, 9-edge first.
  
     The eighty-column mind is thought by most hackers to
     dominate IBM's customer base and its thinking.
  
     See fear and loathing, card walloper.
  
     [Jargon File]
  
     (1996-08-16)
  

eighty-column mind - Jargon File (4.4.4, 14 Aug 2003) :

  eighty-column mind
   n.
  
     [IBM] The sort said to be possessed by persons for whom the
  transition
     from punched card to tape was traumatic (nobody has dared tell them
     about disks yet). It is said that these people, including (according
     to an old joke) the founder of IBM, will be buried `face down, 9-edge
     first' (the 9-edge being the bottom of the card). This directive is
     inscribed on IBM's 1402 and 1622 card readers and is referenced in a
     famous bit of doggerel called The Last Bug, the climactic lines of
     which are as follows:
  
     He died at the console
     Of hunger and thirst.
     Next day he was buried,
     Face down, 9-edge first.
  
     The eighty-column mind was thought by most hackers to dominate IBM's
     customer base and its thinking. This only began to change in the
     mid-1990s when IBM began to reinvent itself after the triumph of the
     killer micro. See IBM, fear and loathing, code grinder. A
  copy
     of The Last Bug lives on the the GNU site at
     http://www.gnu.org/fun/jokes/last.bug.html.