I love how wacky some of the early computing hardware was
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNIVAC_Solid_State
<<much of the computer's logic was made out of magnetic amplifiers, not transistors. >>
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_amplifier
<< The magnetic amplifier was invented early in the 20th century, and was used as an alternative to vacuum tube amplifiers where robustness and high current capacity were required. World War II Germany perfected this type of amplifier, and it was used in the V-2 rocket. >>
<< It came in two versions, the Solid State 80 (IBM-style 80 column cards) and the Solid State 90 (Remington-Rand 90 column cards).>>
OF COURSE there had to have been incompatible punch card formats. Of course.
@natecull To be fair about it, though, Atari wasn't much better at open standards. If you wanted to use a standard RS-232 modem, you had to buy a serial port adapter that would hook up to the Atari proprietary connector and give you your serial ports that way.
@natecull IBM loved to do that (make incompatible things on purpose). Microsoft and Apple are much worse at gratuitous incompatibility, though. Of particular note, the original pre-Lightning cable for iThings.