April Fools' Day part 2 - WebHostingBuzz US Blog<\/title>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.webhostingbuzz.com\/blog\/2011\/04\/02\/april-fools-day-part-2\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"April Fools' Day part 2 - WebHostingBuzz US Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Yes, today is tne annual recurrence of that one morning when it’s somewhat sanctioned to play tricks on your friends, family and co-workers. Sorry if you couldn’t read the earlier April Fools’ post. It was in binary, that single-minded yes-or-no off-or-on one-or-zero language underpinning our digital lives. 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Yes, today is tne annual recurrence of that one morning when it’s somewhat sanctioned to play tricks on your friends, family and co-workers.<\/p>\n

Sorry if you couldn’t read the earlier April Fools’ post. It was in binary, that single-minded yes-or-no off-or-on one-or-zero language underpinning our digital lives. To those of you who figured it out, well done! A quick Google for binary to text converter would have translated the article for you.<\/p>\n

While most of us associate binary code with computers, it was actually introduced in the 17th century by a mathematician. Binary has long been used in mathematics and logic, and was perfect for the later computing boom.<\/p>\n

These days most of us are far removed from dealing with binary code. Our computers, music players and phones all have lovely graphic interfaces, shielding us from the confusing simplicity of binary code.<\/p>\n

My first exposure to computing was as a kid, in a progressive high school. Unusual in its day, that high school had a couple of courses in computer programming. We first had to write simple programs in binary code. Later we used pencil cards.<\/p>\n

Ah, the days of pencil cards. These were oblong cards containing 80 columns, each column a series of small oval spaces, similar to a lottery form. These spaces represented binary code: an unfilled space is a zero, a filled space is one. Spaces were filled using a pencil. Each brief program or instruction required many cards, and a stack of cards was fed into a machine that used IBM’s Optical Mark Recognition system.<\/p>\n

The cards were finicky. If you didn’t entirely fill in a space, or if the pencil mark was too light, it would not be read. I used to buy special 4B pencils (much softer than a standard HB), as they made a lovely opaque mark with ease.<\/p>\n

If you left a stray pencil tick anywhere on the card, it might cause a mis-read and an error. If your cards became rearranged out of sequence, woe betide you if you had neglected to number the cards in order to reestablish the order.<\/p>\n

I well remember special days when we were permitted to go to the Board of Education offices to work on our assignments. They had a punch card reader! Wow, I thought I was really living in the technological age. I sat myself at the huge combination keyboard and card puncher, and entered my code. Instead of pencil marks, a card was physically punched out to create a series of punched and unpunched areas, again representing binary.<\/p>\n

When I edit photos on my laptop computer or download music to my iPod, I’m amazed at how far we’ve come in such a short time. I’m also reminded at how disconnected most of us are from what’s really going on underneath our fancy devices.<\/p>\n

S0, how many of you figured out that yesterday’s posts was in binary, and then translated it to read the article?<\/p>\n

$\"\"$

punch card from my past<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yes, today is tne annual recurrence of that one morning when it’s somewhat sanctioned to play tricks on your friends, family and co-workers. Sorry if you couldn’t read the earlier April Fools’ post. It was in binary, that single-minded yes-or-no off-or-on one-or-zero language underpinning our digital lives. To those of you who figured it out, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":134,"featured_media":2590,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1,134],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nApril Fools' Day part 2 - WebHostingBuzz US Blog<\/title>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.webhostingbuzz.com\/blog\/2011\/04\/02\/april-fools-day-part-2\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"April Fools' Day part 2 - WebHostingBuzz US Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Yes, today is tne annual recurrence of that one morning when it’s somewhat sanctioned to play tricks on your friends, family and co-workers. Sorry if you couldn’t read the earlier April Fools’ post. It was in binary, that single-minded yes-or-no off-or-on one-or-zero language underpinning our digital lives. 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