Powerhouse and my personality disorder.

[Walter Murray]

2005-04-25T21:09-07:00

In the hospital where I worked, the punch cards were actually the source
documents.  (As in, "Do not fold, spindle, staple, or mutilate this
card"! :-)  So unless a mispunched card was in really bad shape, we
tried to repair it, rather than copy it to a fresh card.  For this
purpose, you could buy little rectangular adhesive patches, just
slightly larger than the holes in the card.  They came several hundred
to a sheet, several dozen sheets to a box, in your choice of colors.  We
usually used red, sometimes silver.  You simply put the card back in the
machine, an IBM 026 or 029 in our case, punched the holes that were
supposed to be there, then patched over the holes there weren't supposed
to be.  I always wondered if this was the origin of the verb "patch,"
meaning to modify an object deck without going through the
time-consuming process of modifying and recompiling the source program.

Someone mentioned dumping the contents of the chad bin on people.  We
discouraged using the chad as confetti, because the small pieces of card
had sharp edges and could supposedly be dangerous if one got in a
person's eye.

Walter  


-----Original Message-----
From: powerh-l-admin@lists.sowder.com
[mailto:powerh-l-admin@lists.sowder.com] On Behalf Of Fyfield, Derek
Sent: Monday, April 25, 2005 7:35 AM
To: Richard Sheehan
Cc: powerh-l@lists.sowder.com
Subject: RE: Powerhouse and my personality disorder.

Hi Richard,

Yes, you could use cards to store data.  I used paper tape in '69.  It
probably gave a more physical meaning to 'Cut and paste' when one had to
splice in new numbers into a torn tape.  Cards had something of an
advantage
though.  Instead of punching an entirely new card if there was only one
hole
wrong, one could temporarily plug the column with a spare chad from the
punch's waste-bin, expanding it into position with a bit of pressure and
maybe a damp finger, and then repunching the character.  It was a
one-time
solution used when overcrowding in the office meant the only card-punch
available was the finger-powered Hollerith.

Regards,
 
Derek Fyfield
Orbit Bahrain HO 
SMS Development & Report Writing