19 Oct
2002
19 Oct
'02
6:09 a.m.
On Oct 19, 8:33, Stan Barr wrote:
At school (secondary school, I suppose that's high school for Americans),
we used to fill out FORTRAN (even though we were writing ALGOL) coding
forms and hand them in, and get them back a week later. It taught the
value of dry-running a program :-)
When I worked at Edinburgh University in the mid-70's, our research unit
had punch operators who'd punch the cards, and I'd take the boxes up the
road about 3/4 mile and hand them in. Then they'd sit in a queue until the
operator fed them in, and we'd get the printout back later that day
(usually). I must have handled hundreds of thousands of punch cards, but
now I all I have are three empty metal trays and one card (and I only have
the card because someone sent it to me with a note on it a while ago).
Can anyone remember how many IBM cards fit in a box? A card is nominally 8
thou thick, and a tray is about 16.5" long internally, so it must be
something of the order of 2000.
Who remembers drawing a cross or a diagonal line on the top of the card
deck, so you had some chance of re-ordering the deck if someone dropped the
box?
Who remembers using a folded card (16 thou) to check the points on their
engine (nominally 15 thou)? Folded in three to check the spark plug gap
(nominally 25 thou)??
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Network Manager
University of York
ard(a)p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) said:
>
> Also, many of us remember filling in a coding form, then either
punching
> a card deck or having one punched, then handing
it to the operator,
then
> coming back to collect the output (normally error
messages :-)). I
wonder
if people will
even rememebr that went on in, say, 50 years time.
I used to have to fill out coding forms, put them in the internal mail
with a run request and get a printout in the mail a day or so later.
It made debugging somewhat slow :-) 
19 Oct
19 Oct
11:03 a.m.
On Sat, 19 Oct 2002, Pete Turnbull wrote:
Can anyone remember how many IBM cards fit in a box?
A card is nominally 8
thou thick, and a tray is about 16.5" long internally, so it must be
something of the order of 2000.
That is correct.
Who remembers drawing a cross or a diagonal line on
the top of the card
deck, so you had some chance of re-ordering the deck if someone dropped the
box?
Before my time but I've heard the anecdote.
Who remembers using a folded card (16 thou) to check
the points on their
engine (nominally 15 thou)? Folded in three to check the spark plug gap
(nominally 25 thou)??
I used a folded punch card to clean the relay contacts on my IBM 026 punch
under the tutelage of Mr. John Lawson.
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
* Old computing resources for business and academia at www.VintageTech.com *
11:12 a.m.
On Sat, 19 Oct 2002, Sellam Ismail wrote:
[snippage]
You forgot the "dipped in lighter fluid" part.... The benzene cuts thru
the crud and the rough cardboard burnishes the contact surfaces.
;}
Cheerz
John
engine
(nominally 15 thou)? Folded in three to check the spark plug gap
(nominally 25 thou)??
I used a folded punch card to clean the relay contacts on my IBM 026 punch
under the tutelage of Mr. John Lawson. 
11:23 a.m.
I remember punching all my programs on cards and then marking the cards
with a large X to get them in straight.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Sellam Ismail" <foo(a)siconic.com>
To: <cctalk(a)classiccmp.org>
Sent: Saturday, October 19, 2002 11:04 AM
Subject: Re: [OT] paper on Retro ?
card
their
punch
On Sat, 19 Oct 2002, Pete Turnbull wrote:
> Can anyone remember how many IBM cards fit in a box? A card is
nominally 8
thou thick,
and a tray is about 16.5" long internally, so it must be
something of the order of 2000.
That is correct.
> Who remembers drawing a cross or a diagonal line on the top of the > deck, so you had some chance of re-ordering the
deck if someone
dropped the
box?
Before my time but I've heard the anecdote.
> Who remembers using a folded card (16 thou) to check the points on > engine (nominally 15 thou)? Folded in three to
check the spark plug
gap
(nominally 25
thou)??
I used a folded punch card to clean the relay contacts on my IBM 026 under the tutelage of Mr. John Lawson.
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer
Festival
----------------------------------------------------------------------
--------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger
http://www.vintage.org
* Old computing resources for business and academia at
www.VintageTech.com *
1:35 p.m.
Can anyone remember how many IBM cards fit in a box?
A card is nominally 8
thou thick, and a tray is about 16.5" long internally, so it must be
something of the order of 2000.
Yes.
But TRAYS, and drawers, were also available in 3000 and 4000 sizes.
Who remembers drawing a cross or a diagonal line on
the top of the card
deck, so you had some chance of re-ordering the deck if someone dropped the
box?
Depended a lot on how often it would be changed.
On a deck that would be changed OFTEN, you put ONE diagonal. Next time
that it changed significantly, you'd put a second diagonal. By the time
that you had a dozen different colors and directions of diagonals, that
deck would be overdue to be recopied to have nice fresh crisp cards.
The diagonals were NOT primarily for re-ordering! They were NOT really
adequate for single card positioning. They were to be able to
SEE whether re-ordering was needed (had they dropped the deck?)
You usually allowed space on the card (columns 73?-80) for a sequential
number that could be used with an 084 sorter for re-ordering.
Q: Remember how to dupe a deck on a 360? (If you had JCL cards, "/*"
could be misinterpreted as end of file). (A: load the data deck upside
down)
At many locations, different colors of cards had special meanings. When I
was working at Goddard Space Flight Center, I did not have appropriate
clearance for handling some of the colors of cards that I was working
with.
> Who remembers using a folded card (16 thou) to
check the points on their
> engine (nominally 15 thou)? Folded in three to check the spark plug gap
> (nominally 25 thou)??
And what did you use for adjusting your valves? (~ .006) Zig-zags?
7:01 p.m.
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20 Oct
20 Oct
6:02 p.m.
Another bit of (perhaps true) trivia re IBM cards: I was told once by
a (Control Data) field engineer that the size of the original SSSD
8 inch floppy was chosen to be approximately a box of cards (he claimed
to be an amateur computer historian even way back in the late 70s.) The
original IBM floppy dimensions were:
77 tracks * 26 sectors = 2002 sectors per disk = approx one box of cards.
Never mind the sectors were 128 bytes long instead of 80... The extra
was just extra, I guess.
I have no personal "knowledge" that this is true. I thought that the
original
usage for the diskettes was as an IPL storage to initialize the microcode
on some early 360 mainframes. But, again, I'm not too knowlegable about
IBM gear. Control Data, maybe, but IBM not at all.
I seem to recall seeing some (non IBM) key-to-disk machines that operated
like a keypunch but it produced one card image per sector on those 8 inch
floppies. Anyone know who made these? Was it IBM and if so, what was
the equipment designation?
Tony Duell wrote:
Can anyone
remember how many IBM cards fit in a box? A card is nominally 8
thou thick, and a tray is about 16.5" long internally, so it must be
something of the order of 2000.
I beleive it is eaxctly that...
Who remembers drawing a cross or a diagonal line
on the top of the card
deck, so you had some chance of re-ordering the deck if someone dropped the
box?
Who _doesn't_ :-). Actually the line was more use as a sanity check that
the deck had not been shuffled. There wasn't normally enough resolution
to completely sort a deck using it.
Who remembers using a folded card (16 thou) to
check the points on their
engine (nominally 15 thou)? Folded in three to check the spark plug gap
(nominally 25 thou)??
I remember (once) using a credit card to set the plug gap on a teacher's
car at school (don't ask -- I had a somewhat odd reputation even back
then...)
-tony
6:27 p.m.
On Sunday, October 20, 2002, at 04:07 PM, Gary Oliver wrote:
I seem to recall seeing some (non IBM) key-to-disk machines that
operated
like a keypunch but it produced one card image per sector on those 8
inch
floppies. Anyone know who made these? Was it IBM and if so, what was
the equipment designation?
Near 1980, I worked for CETA a federally run job training / placement
operation. I help train people in Data Entry/Keypunch. We had about 8
of these machines (and two card punches too)
Tab made one of them, two users would sit facing each other, each with
their own 8" drive to their right, 4x80 screen in front was actually
1/2 of a crt displayed with mirrors, They must have had two character
sets because the information displayed on the screen is upside-down
with relation to the other operator.
You could program these machine the same way you can program later
cardpunches, with fields that duplicate and numeric fields and alpha
fields, These machine could add new records or verify existing records.
21 Oct
21 Oct
8:06 a.m.
It sounds likean IBM 3740. We have one. there was also a single
operator version, but I can't recall the number 37xx, I think
On Sun, 20 Oct 2002, Ron Hudson wrote:
On Sunday, October 20, 2002, at 04:07 PM, Gary Oliver wrote:
M. K. Peirce
Rhode Island Computer Museum, Inc.
Shady Lea, Rhode Island
"Casta est quam nemo rogavit."
- Ovid
I seem to recall seeing some (non IBM) key-to-disk machines that
operated
like a keypunch but it produced one card image per sector on those 8
inch
floppies. Anyone know who made these? Was it IBM and if so, what was
the equipment designation?
Near 1980, I worked for CETA a federally run job training / placement
operation. I help train people in Data Entry/Keypunch. We had about 8
of these machines (and two card punches too)
Tab made one of them, two users would sit facing each other, each with
their own 8" drive to their right, 4x80 screen in front was actually
1/2 of a crt displayed with mirrors, They must have had two character
sets because the information displayed on the screen is upside-down
with relation to the other operator.
You could program these machine the same way you can program later
cardpunches, with fields that duplicate and numeric fields and alpha
fields, These machine could add new records or verify existing records.
20 Oct
20 Oct
6:34 p.m.
I thought that the
original
usage for the diskettes was as an IPL storage to initialize the
microcode on some early 360 mainframes.
Not on the 360, but on the 370 and in peripheral controllers such as
that of the 3330 (or was it the 3380?) disk drive. The original floppy
drive was called Minnow. Although it used 8-inch media, it wasn't the same
as the format they later standardized. The drives in the equipment were
read-only, and the track count was not 77, though I don't know what it was.
The index/sector hole was near the edge of the disk rather than near the
spindle. And it spun in the opposite direction! It stored a little over
80 Kbytes.
I seem to recall seeing some (non IBM) key-to-disk
machines that operated
like a keypunch but it produced one card image per sector on those 8 inch
floppies. Anyone know who made these? Was it IBM and if so, what was
the equipment designation?
IBM 3740, circa 1973
7:18 p.m.
IBM 3740, circa 1973
3740 was indeed the system, but the actual data entry equipments were
3741 (single operator) and 3742 (dual operator). These were both desk
type units, with the latter dual station model being the size of a small
barge. Possibly one of IBM sillier offerings...imagine DEC making a
dual VT100.
Some 3741s (mods 2 and 4, I think) have a sync communications port (BSCA),
and could talk to some of the processors. Some larger S/3s have these as
standard, giving the processors a floppy (for diagnostics).
William Donzelli
aw288(a)osfn.org
7:27 p.m.
On Sun, 20 Oct 2002, William Donzelli wrote:
I've got a 3741. It's one of my cooler machines and definitely one of my
favorites. I also have a BASIC interpreter for it so it is basically a
personal computer ;)
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
* Old computing resources for business and academia at www.VintageTech.com *
IBM 3740,
circa 1973
3740 was indeed the system, but the actual data entry equipments were
3741 (single operator) and 3742 (dual operator). These were both desk
type units, with the latter dual station model being the size of a small
barge. Possibly one of IBM sillier offerings...imagine DEC making a
dual VT100.
8116
days inactive
8118
days old
12 comments
11 participants
participants (11)
-
ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk -
at258＠osfn.org -
aw288＠osfn.org -
cisin＠xenosoft.com -
eric＠brouhaha.com -
foo＠siconic.com -
go＠ao.com -
jpl15＠panix.com -
jrkeys＠concentric.net -
pete＠dunnington.u-net.com -
rhudson＠cnonline.net