27 Oct
2010
27 Oct
'10
4:50 a.m.
> My father (NOT a computer historian) used to tell
me that IBM patented the
> shape of the hole! ?That resulted in a few short-lived attempts at
> round-hole cards, etc.),
On Wed, 27 Oct 2010, William Donzelli wrote:
More than a few, actually. There were many, including
a trinary one
(Super Bee or something. Anyone help?) that used cards with
information only on the four edges of the card, but the choices were
hole, no-hole, or hole-with-no-outside-edge.
As a matter of fact, I asked him what those were called a few months
before he died in 1987. He couldn't remember for sure, but thought that
it was something like "Royal McBee" (If I'm remembering correctly what he
said). He said that calling them "edge-sort" should usually work.
My high school had a bunch of those, with their "knitting needles" for
"how to pick the right college".
But, in the earlier quote, the context was input of bulk data into batch
processing computers, suc as 360.
I don't think that I ever saw any bulk readers for edge punch cards, just
the manual poke the needles and see what falls out of the deck.
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com