Punch cards

Irish · #1 09-13-2005, 10:56 AM

Now BobD ... I KNOW that you are not old enough to remember "Do Not Spindle, Fold or Mutilate" let alone have had ANY experience with processing Punch Cards!!

Don't pick on you elders!

Susan

BobD · #2 09-13-2005, 02:28 PM

what are punchcards?

Bob

Ashbys · #3 09-13-2005, 03:16 PM

Oh no! I know what they are !!!

BobD · #4 09-13-2005, 03:29 PM

Does it having something to do with Hanging Chads?

Bob

Ashbys · #5 09-13-2005, 03:40 PM

Only in Fla. !

kaiserb · #6 09-13-2005, 04:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BobD

Does it having something to do with Hanging Chads?

Bob

This thing never left hanging chads it punched all the way through and then some:

http://www.chilton-computing.org.uk/.../cardpunch.jpg

wade clark · #7 09-13-2005, 04:54 PM

Bob,
No, nor dangling participles!
You are kidding, right?
Wade

Irish · #8 09-13-2005, 05:34 PM

OK ... now I REALLY DO feel old. For all of you Young Bucks this Old Doe will do some straightening out here ...

All computers work in binary code which is written using only two charaters ... 0 (zero) and 1 (one). That's all they read. So somewhere deep inside your computer below the DOS programs is the binary coding that creates that program.

Punch cards were the original method for programing a computer. The cards were approxiamately 3" high by about 7" long with rows of small rectangles across their face. Whether each rectangle was punched out or not told the computer the binary code. I believe that it was if the rectangle was solid it was a 0 and if punched a 1.

We would have box loads of these that got feed into the computer hopper in order and the computer read the binary code which told it what to do. So you stood beside this HUGE monster and feed stacks and stacks of these punch cards into the hopper just so the stupid computer could add and subtract or alphabetize a listing or print a series of numbers.

Besides having to feed the computer you had to keep all the punch cards in exact order and face up. If you dropped a stack of punch cards there was no way to put them back in correct order ... so the whole pre-punching job had to be done again. So this is where the "Do Not Spindle, Fold or Mutilate" slogan came from for if you did you trashed your computer program.

After punch cards came the magnetic tape ... which was exactly like you use in a tape player for music. If you accidentally picked up a digital tape and put into the radio's tape deck it sounded exactly like the fax machine on the telephone.

The original floppy was next and it was this extremely thin sheet of plastic that got laid into a drawer that pushed into the computer. The ones I remember were the same funny red color of 33 rpm records ... Don't ask me about 33's !!!!!! And they really were floppy ... you would hold one by a corner and wave it up and down.

Computer programs got more sophisticated about then and we had wonderful words that the computer was pre-programed to understand as RUN or GOTO. By then you could 'almost' type a program in English ... Almost!

Now all of this was about the time that the Apollo rockets made their space voyages. At that time the space capsule computers had less memory then the average math calculator that your fifth grader takes to school with him or her.

That brings me to the time that created the Y2K bug (2000) because they only entered the year in a date with the last two numbers ... Why, you ask ... Well, I'll tell you say I ... because it took a whole 17 KB to enter the other two numbers and 17KB was a tremendous amount of memory space in those days. Our first home PC had this huge huge huge hard drive of 3 gig and my brother, the computer nerd in the family, called it a cannon for us to go duck hunting with.

Which totally makes me feel like a real old granny around here because I Remember When you would CLICK on an internet page that was all text ( no pictures yet) then you would go get some coffee, go to the bathroom, check the TV news, and when you got back you were STILL waiting for the page to load.

AHHHH!

Susan

PS ... Michael is adding that he remembers when you needed two floppies ... one was your operating system (Windows) and the other the program you wanted to run.

Irish · #9 09-13-2005, 05:40 PM

Oh Whosits! I'm so old that I remeber when you picked up the telephone and Thelma Straw, the telephone operator for Bell Telephone, would ask you who you wanted to talk to. Our phone number was 585J and it was a party line for about six houses. Touch pad??? Dials??? No, just Mrs. Straw and you had better be nice and polite to her or she wouldn't place your call.

Old Mamma Susan

Ashbys · #10 09-13-2005, 06:27 PM

Thats ok Susan ,

I can remember using punch cards at work, when they were used to operate machines. Not the same as the puchcard your speaking of but along the same principle. And I will take you back just a bit father, I remember a lot of houses without indoor bathrooms. I also remember when color TV came out. And having only 48 states. Opps now we are getting back too far .. no I don't remeber any of that! uhh lets see who was Jimmy Hendrix ...

hehe
Ash