This isn't solely a mainframe thing. The pty/tty designation for terminals on Linux is a reference to when the computer had no display, but output to a typewriter (to give one such example).
Also, tar is short for "tape archive".
Tape archives were actually cost-effective right up until a few years ago.
The 'cards' statement is SAS remains one of my favorite ways to bring data into a program for exactly that reason.
used to be being the relevant metric.
Linux and UNIX used to be installed using stacks of diskettes and piles of patience.
I once booted from a DAT tape.
Open a terminal session on pretty much any platform. If it defaults to being 80 columns wide, guess where that width comes from.