What is it ???

[SLOCONDR]

Anyone (besides you, Cliff) know what this was and what it was used for?

V

SLOCONDR

[randy]

It's an IBM punch card. Before we connected keyboards to mainframe computers, you had to punch a bunch of these to input your program/inquiry for processing.

I first did this in college in about 1968. When I got out of the Navy in '73 I went to work for Signetics in the Silicon Valley. I was doing circuit simulations that required a deck of hundreds of cards. I had to take these to the data processing department and leave them for a few days. If I had one card wrong, I'd get back forty pages of a straight line.

Ah, the good old days...not!

[SLOCONDR]

(12-07-2010 06:01 PM)randy Wrote:  It's an IBM punch card. Before we connected keyboards to mainframe computers, you had to punch a bunch of these to input your program/inquiry for processing.

I first did this in college in about 1968. When I got out of the Navy in '73 I went to work for Signetics in the Silicon Valley. I was doing circuit simulations that required a deck of hundreds of cards. I had to take these to the data processing department and leave them for a few days. If I had one card wrong, I'd get back forty pages of a straight line.

Ah, the good old days...not!

Yup,
That's what they be. A better use of them was for conductors to keep their notes on, spotting and pulling cars, times and so on.

V

SLOCONDR
(BOCM1)

[Holloran Grade]

They were also fun to throw at football games and the holes from these were almost impossible to get out of ones hair or clothes due to the shape and sharp corners (had bags of these).

My uncle worked for Hughes Aircraft and we always had thousands of these around for the youngins to play with.

Sadly - I don't have a single one.

[SLOCONDR]

(12-07-2010 07:23 PM)Holloran Grade Wrote:  They were also fun to throw at football games and the holes from these were almost impossible to get out of ones hair or clothes due to the shape and sharp corners (had bags of these).

My uncle worked for Hughes Aircraft and we always had thousands of these around for the youngins to play with.

Sadly - I don't have a single one.

I have exactly 6 left. I use them when taking measurements while builing furniture or what ever.

V

SLOCONDR
(BOCM1)

[Holloran Grade]

(12-07-2010 07:31 PM)SLOCONDR Wrote:  

(12-07-2010 07:23 PM)Holloran Grade Wrote:  They were also fun to throw at football games and the holes from these were almost impossible to get out of ones hair or clothes due to the shape and sharp corners (had bags of these).

My uncle worked for Hughes Aircraft and we always had thousands of these around for the youngins to play with.

Sadly - I don't have a single one.

I have exactly 6 left. I use them when taking measurements while builing furniture or what ever.

V

SLOCONDR
(BOCM1)

For scratch paper, or does the Mrs. not trust you with rulers and steel tapes?

[SP4449]

(12-07-2010 05:21 PM)SLOCONDR Wrote:  Anyone (besides you, Cliff) know what this was and what it was used for?

V

SLOCONDR

Hey V it looks like it would be the cards that RR Management would use to keep track of freight cars and shipments and all of that data before the railroads started using computers to track all of that.

[erielackawanna]

I remember when credit card bills came with a punch card for you to return with your payment - "Don't fold, mutilate or staple."

When I was in high school, we used a telex terminal that we could call a main frame from. We kept our programs on paper tape, which - again, if you got one hole wrong, your entire program was useless.

[Holloran Grade]

(12-07-2010 09:53 PM)erielackawanna Wrote:  I remember when credit card bills came with a punch card for you to return with your payment - "Don't fold, mutilate or staple."

I have had a credit card since 1980 and I don't remember those.

They just came with a statement like now and you sent in the check (now I send it online.)

(12-07-2010 09:53 PM)erielackawanna Wrote:  When I was in high school, we used a telex terminal that we could call a main frame from. We kept our programs on paper tape, which - again, if you got one hole wrong, your entire program was useless.

I used the Telray terminals that were connected to a Digital Computer Company main frame (aka a VAX).

By that time (say 1984 or 1985) they were not using tapes or punch cards anymore. But there was evidence of their use everywhere.

I do remember older friends talking about running their FORTRAN program on the computer by loading their stack of cards and the reader would read it in to the computer (because there was no stored memory like a hard drive) and the computer would chug and crank and spit out the results.

However, lose a card, your screwed. Get card number 456 in front of card 457, your screwed.

Spill coffee on any of your cards, you cry and then your screwed.

Have your evil friend jamb an exacto knife blade through one of the spots on any of your cards to create an extra hole, your really screwed and it will take years to find the problem.

Good times.......

That is why when the guy from Apple showed us the first generation Macintosh, we all just sat there with our mouths agape, literally blown away.

It was like the second coming of Jesus - a real life altering event.

You just looked at what that thing could do and said wow, things are really going to be different.

I also remember thinking wow, I can take it home so no more sitting in the computer center at 3:00 a.m. doing your homework because there was never enough terminals to go around.

Life has never been the same since and so here we are.

[erielackawanna]

1980, HG? That was the end of it, yes, but I think they may have still been around.

I remember American Express, as late as 1984 or so, actually sending you the cardstock part of each charge slip for every charge you had made, and one cardstock return card (different size) that you would return with your payment. As I recall, it had punch holes in it, but I may be remembering earlier.

They definetely had punch holes in them in the mid, even late 1970s.