On Dec 13, 2015, at 1:20 PM, Fred Cisin <ci...@xenosoft.com> wrote:
>> > So did you have to learn how to read the punch hole cards also or did
>> > the punch hole cards go into the computer and than printed out the
>> > data on the fan fold paper also was it in code or just plane English?
>> You COULD read the holes, if you really HAD to. Keypunches printed
>> the alphanumeric form on the top edge of the cards. if you punched a
>> deck of cards on the CPU's card punch, there was no printing. If it
>> was an "object deck" ie. binary code, you would never "interpret" the
>> deck. But, if it had something that might be human readable, there
>> was a machine called an interpreter, and it would type the symbols on
>> the top of the card for you.
>
> At
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punched_card#/media/File:Blue-punch-card-front-horiz.png
> is a picture of a card. It was punched with a printing punch, or run through
> a 029 series interpreter punch, NOT with an INTERPRETER, which didn't line up
> what it printed with the columns (too large a font to do so), and couldn't
> interpret and run COBOL anyway.
>
> Notice the punches used for the numbers.
> The rows above '0' were called 'Y' and 'X'
> Now look at the punches used for 'A' and 'B', and the relationship between
> them.
> Now look at 'K', and compare it with 'J', 'L', and 'B'
> Now look at 'T', and compare it with 'S', 'U', 'B', and 'K'
> Letters and numbers were a simple easy to learn pattern. I never fully
> learned the patterns for punctuation characters, and had to often look them
> up.
>
> The diagonally cut corner was not always on the left (incompletely
> standardized)
>
>
> There was another special purpose punch, called a "VERIFIER".
> You loaded it up with cards that were already punched, and proceeded to type
> from the same coding sheet. If the whole card matched, then it put a little
> notch in the 80 end of the card, to show that its content was confirmed, or
> "VERIFIED". If the content didn't match, then the VERIFIER put a notch in
> the top edge of the card above the column that didn't match.
> Sometimes service bureaus that were hired to keypunch would verify whole
> boxes of blank cards. Then they could give their client decks of "VERIFIED"
> cards, without having to actually rekey the content. Yes, we did run into
> them.
>
>
> Hanging Chad was a miscarriage of justice.
>
>
> Bury me face down, 9 edge first.
>
>
> --
> Grumpy Ol' Fred ci...@xenosoft.com
It almost seems like it was a lot more physical not mental to run computers
back in the day.
