Reply #24: This will make you laugh.......

[googly]

when I first started using computers on an IBM1620, to run a program,
first we had to run the "loader" deck of cards thru the card reader,
(we used only punched cards, no hard disk was available LOL), then we
loaded the compiled object language deck of cards, and then the
subroutine deck of cards, followed by input data deck.

The computer then could either type out the answers or punch cards.
Since the memory available to the programmer was so freakng small, most
of our engineering calculation programs required many segmentations to
do the entire job. Which meant the answers from first segment program
were punched out on cards, the next segment then processed (loader,
2nd segemnt program, subroutines, punched deck from 1st segment). One
of our programs required 25 segments to finish the job, so it took half
a day to make one run!

I was ecstatic when IBK came out with the 1130 which had a hard disk
so we did not need punched cards. If my memory is right, the disk
capacity was 400,000 bytes = 0.4 meg.