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Files exist because decks of punched cards were cumbersome. A best practice was to make a diagonal stripe across the top with magic marker so that you could restore the ordering if you accidentally dropped the deck. Files in a filesystem eliminated the need for that. And the cards were heavy.

That's why files exist. Not sure what the article is trying to say, TL/DR



The diagonal trick reminds me of CDROM CRC error mechanism (reversed of course)




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