naw.... the card reader read punches and the reader driver made it readable on your machine! ! there were some for hp-2000 also and ho 3000 we would love to find one for the smecc museum here in az if anyone has an HP setup! Ed Sharpe archivist for SMECC In a message dated 5/10/2015 1:56:51 A.M. US Mountain Standard Time, robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com writes: I recall back in the late 70s using an IBM 029 Card Punch to punch cards for the DECSYSTEM-20. As I understand it, the 029 was an EBCDIC machine, but of course the DECSYSTEM-20 was ASCII. Does that mean there was an ASCII version of the 029, or that there was something in the card reader software on TOPS-20 that converted EBCDIC to ASCII? Regards Rob