At my first job in 1972, I became acquainted with the IBM 026 card punch machine and the IBM 024 card verifier at my first job "Metropolitan Life Insurance Company" that I entered in 1970, as a high school student. This show should be right up my alley. Keypunch was the next "best" thing I learned as a typist at my first job. When older people asked me about my occupation and I mention that I was a keypunch operator, they would ask if it had something to do with computers, then I would answer "yes," and they would me a "computer wiz," even when I have not seen a computer in my life. I was given a title favored by the right kind of people. My typewriting skill enabled me to learn keypunch by the firm with ease. It was a co-worker advised me that if I can type fast and accurately, I could learn any equipment that has a typewriter-like keyboard.

I saw one in action, in "Our Man Flint" movie. The computer selected Flint as the best suitable Agent for the task, based from requirements set by members of Zowie.

Way back in the dark ages, in my grade 12 FORTRAN class, we used pencil mark cards. These were the same dimensions as the IBM punch cards, but only supported 40 columns. IIRC, the same card could have both pencil marks and punched holes. A few years later, when I was a technician, I maintained & repaired punch card equipment.

I handled hundreds of thousands punch cards during my time as a computer operator.

My father worked for Defense Computational Resources Working Group, and dealt with writing programs on punchcards. He had developed an optical auto punch card system and had special cards printed up for it. Those cards would have little boxes over the punch area. So you'd must mark it just like those old scantron tests. Then you'd feed it into the keypunch machine and it would automatically detect the mark areas and punch them. This was in contrast to doing it manually on a keyboard like he said. Ok. Then he had a system of transparencies with commonly used snippets of code written out, and an overlay pattern to trace at the bottom of it. He'd put that on a glass table and put the punch card on top of it so he could mark down the spots that were blacked out underneath. So it was a primitive way of using programming libraries, heh. He said he got the idea from a story he heard about Bletchley park where they would use transparencies to help identify numerical patterns in codebreaking. Later on when xerography (that's photocopying) came out, he'd just put the transparencies into the photocopier and then trim down what it spit out and fed them into the optical-punch machine. There were some other cool innovations, such as optical tape for feeding the patterned program data that way. That was just a flim negative with the optical "punch" patterns exposed on it. That of course needed a highly modified reader, but he said the system worked well. The system used for "recording" the data onto the microfilm was real low frills he said, and consisted of a Minox camera. He said he managed to get about 2k info of information onto an exposure of 8x11mm film, a roll of which held 50 exposures (and was dirt cheap).

@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject

3 ай бұрын

Hi @telesniper2 , thank you for the great comment and history info! Sorry for the delay in responding. I appreciate your info and historical background. Thanks for sharing this with us. ~ Victor, CHAP

@telesniper2

3 ай бұрын

@@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject You bet! I love your channel, especially the videos of electronic workshops, production lines, and testing.

@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject

3 ай бұрын

Thank you for the great feedback! It is much appreciated. ~ VK, CHAP

god, i'm old. my first three computer classes in college, we had to use punch cards, the 029 punch machine. the first day of class, they hand out one pink job card to everybody, which you have to protect with your life or you can't submit any jobs. fortunately i never dropped a card deck, but i've seen it happen.

The size of a standard punch card matched that of the US paper currency in the 1890s. That allowed the use of readily available holders and racks to facilitate things. Where I went to HS in Northern KY in the early 60s we had punch card machines from Remington Rand supporting the two rows of 45 round holes giving 90 columns per card. At the first place that I worked as a programmer there was a mix of IBM 026 and 029 keypunches in the key punch room. Most only had a numeric keypad and only about 10 were had the full alphanumeric keypads. In the computer room, there was only and IBM 016 keypunch - a true museum piece even then. Fun times!

@margeschroeder509

5 жыл бұрын

I was at that time by the name of a key punch operator and I also verified was employed downtown Chicago for the Pure Oil Company during the late fifties and works there till DURING 1960 and went on to Oklahoma Oil Co .on Michigan Avenue in Chicago did similar work

The 96-column punched card was missing from the IBM Systema 3 computer...

oh heck they are in museums 😳. I used that kind in the 1960’s and into the 1970s. Oh heck I am old 🫢

In the 80"s imto the 90's, train tickets in Norway came as a punched card like this. Didnt realize the background of it then.

Some university degree subjects required students to write punch card programs back in 1979. Confusing to many students who were already using electronic display terminals in other subjects at that time.

@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject

7 ай бұрын

Hi @malibu188, Yes, you are quite correct! Also, I remember "Computer Learning Center" in Los Angeles and "Control Data Institute" (two of the big private schools) still required learning keypunch and cards in mid1980's. Good historical point. Thanks! ~ VK, at CHAP

@edwardvogel9094

21 күн бұрын

I had to create an amortization schedule using BASIC on punch cards in 1982 in my Intro to Computing course. Imagine, you had to know BASIC then just to get a business degree!

8:50 "VolksWagon"? Since this is not a car channel, all is forgiven! Love your vids!

@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject

Жыл бұрын

Thanks! Seems like every business had its own punch cards and logos back then. Cigarette companies, car companies, book-of-the-month clubs, etc.

I use to submit RPG II jobs via punched cards. Good times.

let's not forget MA BELL used to use 80 col cards for the phone bill too! I worked on IBM 360 machines and know that if you wet your finger and rub the center of each side of the card, you would cause the card to swell, and the gapper in the card reader would cause the reader to jam.The operator would have to remove the jam, then manually duplicate the card and insert it into the stack. such fun to cause MA Bell some processing issues. you could also use special tape to cover the holes and repunch what you WANTED to pay, instead of what was originally on the card

@lwilton

6 жыл бұрын

Knife-feed readers were notorious for not liking cards with lumps, ragged edges, paper clips, curl, or most any problem other than pristine dead flat cardstock. Depending on the reader design, you might not be able to read a deck of fresh cards reliably more than maybe 5-8 times before you had to start duplicating cards. That was a serious problem in the days before mag tape when account masters were kept on decks of punch cards and needed to be processed repeatedly, every week or every month. Personally I much preferred the Burroughs belt-fed card readers. Those would read almost anything without problems, including sometimes cards with paper clips in them. Swollen, soft, spindled, and ragged cards very seldom caused any problems.

@allanrichardson1468

5 жыл бұрын

l wilton The IBM 1402 and its successor the 3640, both knife feeding machines, were so carefully engineered that a properly maintained machine was said by some operators to be able to “read the rags they’re made from.” I suppose anyone who tried to cheat Ma Bell with that special tape could have faced fraud charges. Part of the data entry process involved breaking the day’s work into batches, after which a clerk would use a calculator with a printed tape to add the values of certain numbers PRINTED on the cards when they were punched and get control totals. This might include phone numbers (not having a physical meaning, but just as an accuracy check), and would surely include the amount due. A keypunch operator would punch a control totals card from this information and add it to the deck of returned bill cards (and also punch each customer’s actual payment from the checks received). The first computer run, a listing of each batch of bill cards with their control totals, would detect that an amount due had been altered on the cards, and that batch would be examined more closely and the fraud would be detected.

@James_Knott

Жыл бұрын

Do not fold, spindle or mutilate! That was printed on many utility bills that were on punch cards. You'd write the amount in the box and then a key punch operator would punch the card with the info.

I learned keypunch on an IBM 024 card punch.

I say technology can do any damn thing it wants as long as it eliminates the key punch operator job.

Excellent video. Very informative.

@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject

6 жыл бұрын

Thanks very much. Glad you enjoyed it.

Good

Ada Lovelace?

@James_Knott

Жыл бұрын

She certainly contributed to computing, but I don't think punch cards. That was Babbage, who she work with.

But the question is, can it run Crysis? :D

00:57 #GodiamgreatfulAmin 1:01:10

PLEASE JOIN US in Preserving Computer History with a small contribution to our channel. www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=LCNS584PPN28E Your contribution greatly helps us continue to bring you educational, historical, vintage computing topics. Thank you! ~ Computer History Archives Project

i remeber checks with do not fold, spindle or mutilate from the goverment. cut my teeth on card punching, ugh.also remember as a child in either first grade or kindergarten, wed make Christmas wreaths out of them.

@allanrichardson1468

8 жыл бұрын

On the University of Florida campus circa 1966, a campus church opened a weekend "coffeehouse" named the Bent Card; its sign had a crude picture of a punch card on it. The church coffeehouse movement (I believe this was the just-off-campus Lutheran church; several campus religious institutes had churches and the Hillel Foundation student gathering places across University Avenue on the north side of the campus, and still do today) offered gathering places without the temptations of alcohol (except, for some, during communion services) to counteract the feeling that the students were just "cards" in the university's computer, hence the sign, echoing a common saying of the time: "I am a human being! Do not bend, fold, staple or mutilate!"

@allanegleston13

8 жыл бұрын

thanks for sharing that .:)