Post B4NrBPRqRr6zvELkvY by riley@toot.cat
 (DIR) More posts by riley@toot.cat
 (DIR) Post #B4NrBPRqRr6zvELkvY by riley@toot.cat
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       A retrofuturistic story about a past future in which computers will be so advanced that they no longer punch holes into paper tapes and paper cards by dies but they drill these holes with lasers.
       
 (DIR) Post #B4NrBStFePoib6CBYu by riley@toot.cat
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       Contrary to what one might think, lasers were around for some twenty years before punched paper storage went obsolete. The possibility of using laser to cut paper, though, didn't graduate from magic to advanced technology until long after that. (It requires high power-density lasers and high-precision feedback control that would have been prohibitively expensive for virtually all kinds of paper-cutting purposes before the late nineties. A case could also be made that the invention of CO2 lasers was an important part of the equation, but, well, that turned out to be a relatively easy part of it.)