Digital archaeology of the microcomputer, 1974-1994

[Chuck Guzis]

On 20 Jan 2007 at 12:09, Alexandre Souza wrote:

>     Maybe not for you, but I'd love to. I have enough hardware knowledge to 
> make it become a serial-feed keypunch

Wonderful.  What would you do with the cards thus punched?

Cards are another thing about the old gear that I don't miss.  
Undoubtedly, they were one of the things that kept programmer 
productivity down.  At 2000 cards per box, 10,000 statements took 5 
boxes--and a very nervous trip down to the CPU room until the cards 
could be written to tape---several times (Use several loadpoints on a 
tape; use the first copy until the tape starts giving errors, whack 
off the first loadpoint and use the second copy...).  Having some 
idiot (including yours truly) knock a box of cards to the floor or 
watching the card reader going through a mulch-and-mangle cycle was 
SO much fun.  

People not raised on card methods really don't appreciate the 
difficulties.  When you're punching, you really can't see what you've 
typed (on an 026/029 at least--some later keypunches buffered the 
whole card up before punching) and mistakes are not reversible except 
by repunching the entire card.  A good memory and absoute accuracy 
was essential.   

On the other hand, it was great that CDC Sunnyvale ops viewed used 
cards as a nuisance.  We had a bunch of volunteers who'd go around to 
all of the waste paper-and-card bins outside of every sixpack every 
evening and collect paper and cards for recycling to raise money for 
the Sierra Club. It went wonderfully until the SC decided to give us 
an achievement award for contributing something like $50K one year.  
Other company activities clubs got wind of that and wanted a piece of 
the pie.  Unfortuantely, they couldn't get the dedicated volunteer 
labor and the whole affair collapsed and was eventually turned over 
to a paid employee, which didn't leave much money left over.  

Cheers,
Chuck