27 Jan
1998
27 Jan
'98
3:43 p.m.
At 06:46 PM 1/27/98 -0800, you wrote:
>Who among you collects mainframes?
Paul Pierce (and yes, he is lurking out here somewhere...) Pix at
http://www.teleport.com/~prp
That brings up two questions:
1) Where do I find old punch cards(used or
"new")
Boy, can I relate to *that* one! As part of the preparations for an
exhibit (that I am *still* working on) I needed to find a quantity of punch
cards (unpunched) to feed to my unit-record equipment and mini-computers.
I chased that one for a *long* time, getting a partial box here and there
from people usually using them as notepads. I finally
stumbled into a
decent quantity from a local recycler who had heard of my search.
Turned
out that he had just cleaned out an old data center that had been relocated
and found a couple of pallets of them! (salvation!) I grabbed about a
dozen boxes. Don't know if there are still any left...
2) Would it be possible to hook up a punch card reader
to a PC? Read old
punch cards with your PC using a mainframe emulator!
To a PC? Probably, but seems somewhat sacreligious. (and excessively
complicated) I've actually hooked up a DEC card reader to one of my
Altairs for a recent job while I was still restoring the PDP-8 that it
actually should have been hooked to. Took about 4 hours to wire the cable
and interface, and another 1.5 hours to hand assemble the code to run it...
-jim
---
jimw(a)agora.rdrop.com
The Computer Garage - http://www.rdrop.com/~jimw
Computer Garage Fax - (503) 646-0174