Comment by WalterBright

11 hours ago

Having printouts were necessary when:

1. you were using a DECwriter dot matrix printer as a terminal

2. using an ASR-33 teletype as a terminal

3. using punch cards or paper tape

4. using a glass tty that could only display 24 lines

5. when you did not have a remote terminal, and wanted to spread your code out on a table and debug it