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Marty Fouts

@stefan It’s a plausible etymology but not consistent with my memory. I recall patch being used as a verb first, in the sense “to make a small incomplete repair”. But both the noun and verb predated punch cards and the use for punch cards derived from the small piece of cloth used to cover a hole in clothing. To make it more confusing, “patch cord” was used before paper tape or punch cards to describe the cables used to program early computers.

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argv minus one

@MartyFouts

I've heard of Ethernet cables being called patch cords. Not sure why.

@stefan

Arthur van der Harg

@MartyFouts @stefan I’m not surprised to find clothing/fabric related metaphors with punch cards. They were originally used in Jacquard looms to define patterns. So it’s natural to call a small repair using a bit of replacement material a “patch”.

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