abuse The sort said to be possessed by persons for whom the
(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.
(1996-08-16)