Card Punches (and how to use them)

[Christian Brunschen]

For people like me whose computing involvement started in the age of CRT
monitors, card punches are not particularly familiar. So this video was
quite interesting to watch - it shows how to use an 029 (and briefly an
026) card punch station:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaVwzYN6BP4

Best wishes,

// Christian

[Ibmekon]

Thanks for the memories.

I dimly remember duplicating a deck of cards by interleaving it with
blank cards and feeding the lot in.

But I cannot remember if you could walk away while it copied the
cards. Maybe a program card used.



Carl Goldsworthy

[jmfbahciv]

You could program the drum card to do that. I never liked to do it
because if you goofed by one missed blank card, things may become a mess
if that was your only copy of the card deck.

/BAH

[Ibmekon]

Ah so, pity the video did not show the drum - my memory of it is ,
literally , sketchy. It went in the middle section , I think.
Maybe I will look it out.

Carl Goldsworthy

[Stephen Wolstenholme]

When I was a young DP engineer looking after a room full of punches I
really got to hate them!

Steve

--
Neural Network Software. http://www.npsl1.com
EasyNN-plus. Neural Networks plus. http://www.easynn.com
SwingNN. Forecast with Neural Networks. http://www.swingnn.com
JustNN. Just Neural Networks. http://www.justnn.com

[Ibmekon]

On Sun, 13 May 2012 15:15:42 +0100, Stephen Wolstenholme
<st...@npsl1.com> wrote:

>On Sun, 13 May 2012 08:56:42 +0000 (UTC), c...@mer.df.lth.se (Christian
>Brunschen) wrote:
>
>>For people like me whose computing involvement started in the age of CRT
>>monitors, card punches are not particularly familiar. So this video was
>>quite interesting to watch - it shows how to use an 029 (and briefly an
>>026) card punch station:
>>
>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaVwzYN6BP4
>>
>>Best wishes,
>>
>>// Christian
>
>When I was a young DP engineer looking after a room full of punches I
>really got to hate them!
>
>Steve

Yeah , but you never had to buy confetti !

Carl Goldsworthy

[Nick Spalding]

Ibmekon wrote, in <p3gvq75ea1l260ids...@4ax.com>
on Sun, 13 May 2012 15:15:09 +0100:

<https://www.google.ie/search?hl=en&newwindow=1&safe=off&biw=1016&bih=507&gbv=2&tbm=isch&sa=1&q=keypunch+drum&oq=keypunch+drum&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&gs_l=img.12...17256.23054.0.26804.8.8.0.0.0.0.91.568.8.8.0...0.0.AAW3eelGUaE>
aka <http://tinyurl.com/cjxljgf>
--
Nick Spalding

[Joe Morris]

"jmfbahciv" <See....@aol.com> wrote:
> Ibmekon wrote:

>> I dimly remember duplicating a deck of cards by interleaving it with
>> blank cards and feeding the lot in.

>> But I cannot remember if you could walk away while it copied the
>> cards. Maybe a program card used.

> You could program the drum card to do that. I never liked to do it
> because if you goofed by one missed blank card, things may become a mess
> if that was your only copy of the card deck.

Um...no, assuming youre referring to an IBM 026/029/129. You could
duplicate:

* from the immediately preceeding card, or
* from the (extra-cost) "aux dup" card [*]

I don't know of any mechanism by which you could interleave punched and
blank cards and have each punched card duplicated on the following blank.

The machine had (right to left, the movement of cards through the mechanism)
the supply hopper, the "next card" station (the card here is ready to move
quickly to the punch station), the punch station, the read station, and the
stacker. Except for the hopper and stacker, these each could contain at
most one card. The machine had no memory, so once you release a card every
card in the bed moves forward by one station; there was no mechanism to let
it know that it just duplicated a card and therefore should immediately
release the current (source) card to put it at the read station, and
register the blank card for punching.

[*] The 026/029 "Aux Dup" feature (and I'll admit that I never saw a machine
equipped with it) used a second card drum - similar to the program card drum
and located behind it - to hold constant text. I don't recall it being
offered on the 129 but I won't guarantee that.

Bitsavers has the 029 reference manual...a trip down memory lane for some of
us:

http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/punchedCard/Keypunch/029/GA24-3332-6_Reference_Manual_Model_29_Card_Punch_Jun70.pdf

Page 24 describes the aux dup function.

Another reference source:

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/computinghistory/026.html

which has links to the 029 page and another page with some pictures of early
keypunch devices.

Joe

[Rod Speed]

Joe Morris <j.c.m...@verizon.net> wrote

> jmfbahciv <See....@aol.com> wrote
>> Ibmekon wrote

>>> I dimly remember duplicating a deck of cards by interleaving it with
>>> blank cards and feeding the lot in.

>>> But I cannot remember if you could walk away while it copied the cards.
>>> Maybe a program card used.

>> You could program the drum card to do that. I never liked to do it
>> because if you goofed by one missed blank card, things may become a mess
>> if that was your only copy of the card deck.

> Um...no, assuming youre referring to an IBM 026/029/129. You could
> duplicate:

> * from the immediately preceeding card, or
> * from the (extra-cost) "aux dup" card [*]

> I don't know of any mechanism by which you could interleave punched and
> blank cards and have each punched card duplicated on the following blank.

Yes you could if you did the programmed card appropriately.

But like Barb says, that was dangerous if the deck wasn’t interleaved
perfectly.

> The machine had (right to left, the movement of cards through the
> mechanism) the supply hopper, the "next card" station (the card here is
> ready to move quickly to the punch station), the punch station, the read
> station, and the stacker. Except for the hopper and stacker, these each
> could contain at most one card. The machine had no memory, so once you
> release a card every card in the bed moves forward by one station; there
> was no mechanism to let it know that it just duplicated a card and
> therefore should immediately release the current (source) card to put it
> at the read station, and register the blank card for punching.

Yes there was with the control drum and the card on it.

[Peter Flass]

I 'm pretty sure it wasn't possible on an 029 or similar. A buffered
punch like the 129, or a Univac or Burroughs punch, perhaps.

--
Pete

[jmfbahciv]

You could have two programs on a drum card. Wasn't the aux key used to tell
the keypunch to use the lower program? Or am I completely misremembering?


/BAH

[jmfbahciv]

To dup the whole card? It's possible to code the drum card to do that.

/BAH

[Ibmekon]

I took a look at the manual at Bitsavers.

It would seem that you could feed in an interleaved deck - then ;

Switch autoskip on, and start the first card copying using the drum
program.

Whilst card is being copied, immediately switch autoskip off to stop
a second copy being made.

When machine stops, a copy of card 1 would be at the lefthand read
station. The second card to be read at the righthand punch station.

So manually hit a key to feed the cards thru the transport.

Rinse and repeat.

Carl Goldsworthy

[Ibmekon]

BTW you mentioned elsewhere that you enjoyed "The Big Bang Theory".

I had ignored it - the trailers made it seem like just another teenage
comedy.

The 6-7pm hour here has wall-to-wall news programs.
I flicked channels, and watched TBBT, and now I have an alternative to
the dreary news.

I dont know if you can get a UK show called "Quite Interesting", also
referred to as QI.
Its my "must not miss" show for a while.

Carl Goldsworthy

[Peter Flass]

Yes, to dup one card. OP was talking about duping a whole deck by
interleaving source cards with blanks.

Personally. I'd just have used a tab machine or a utility on the mainframe.

--
Pete

[Peter Flass]

I've pretty much given up on news - all killings, politics, protesting,
wars, criminal banksters... Of course, that's what news *is*. I prefer
to watch stories about dogs rescuing people, or firemen getting kittens
out of a drainpipe, etc.


--
Pete

[John Levine]

>You could have two programs on a drum card. Wasn't the aux key used to tell
>the keypunch to use the lower program? Or am I completely misremembering?

Possibly, although I never had a drum program that fancy, mostly just
skip to col 7 for Fortran programs.

You could use a drum card to make multiple copies of the same fixed
text, which was sometimes useful for job control cards and the like.

If you wanted to reproduce a desk, you'd either use an old plugboard
machine, or run a small job on your computer. At Princeton, there was
a utility called THOR that ran on the RJE 360/20's to do that kind of
stuff.

R's,
John
--
Regards,
John Levine, jo...@iecc.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. http://jl.ly

[Patrick Scheible]

News shows tend to overdue the day's events rather than their causes.
"500 XXX troops killed today in YYY," rather than explaining what
country XXX was hoping to gain by sending their troops to YYY.

-- Patrick

[Charlie Gibbs]

In article <jor4p5$8bh$2...@dont-email.me>, Peter...@Yahoo.com

(Peter Flass) writes:

> I've pretty much given up on news - all killings, politics,
> protesting, wars, criminal banksters... Of course, that's what
> news *is*. I prefer to watch stories about dogs rescuing people,
> or firemen getting kittens out of a drainpipe, etc.

Yup. Or the continuing saga of our slide toward an elected
dictatorship. I wonder whether the suicide rate peaks at
6:30 p.m., right after the evening news.

I love your term "banksters" - I'll have to start using that.

A local credit union was running TV ads where a couple of people
would go into a darkened basement, shining flashlights around.
Occasionally they'd spot someone wearing suspenders and clutching
some papers, who would scurry away, ratlike, behind a filing cabinet.
"Yup," one of the searchers would say, "you've got bankers."

--
/~\ cgi...@kltpzyxm.invalid (Charlie Gibbs)
\ / I'm really at ac.dekanfrus if you read it the right way.
X Top-posted messages will probably be ignored. See RFC1855.
/ \ HTML will DEFINITELY be ignored. Join the ASCII ribbon campaign!

[Scott Lurndal]

"Charlie Gibbs" <cgi...@kltpzyxm.invalid> writes:

>
>Yup. Or the continuing saga of our slide toward an elected
>dictatorship.

Mitt Romney as Nehemiah Scudder? Shudder.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_This_Goes_On%E2%80%94

scott

[Andrew Gabriel]

In article <o7hvq7di9nri6kirh...@4ax.com>,

Very serious offence to use the chad as confetti.
The cards are made from stiff card which doesn't soften in water,
and the chad had sharp square edges. Getting it in an eye could be
quite serious and could result in a hospital visit. Same with
paper tape punch chad.

This was a standard part of the Health and Safety talk at all
computer organisations I worked at in the early days.
Togther with slicing through flesh when winding up a paper tape,
twisting a wrist off removing a 14" disk pack that hadn't spun
down, and all sorts other other gruesome things one could do in
a real computer room. Life is just so boring nowadays...

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]

[Andrew Gabriel]

In article <jont0a$6ds$1...@dont-email.me>,

I arrived at University the year the online system went live,
but all the staff were familiar with punch cards, and the status
symbol in the physics department for a staff member was to have
your own 029 punch in your office. Meanwhile, the undergrads
quickly got online using the terminals, although we had to do
some punch card work as many programs existed as decks of cards,
and our teachers only new the card job submission system.

Within about half a year, the staff also got to grips with the
new online system, and the status symbol quickly changed to
having your own DECwriter or Tektronics 4010/4012/4014 in your
office. The 029 card punches started to get pushed out into
the corridors (which were fortunately very wide;-). Eventually,
the things were abandoned all over the place.

Then someone discovered there was over $1000 worth of platinum
(or some other expensive metal) on the contacts inside the 029
punches, and they virtually all vanished overnight. The computer
center had difficulty retaining even one for editing legacy
card decks.

[David Dyer-Bennet]

and...@cucumber.demon.co.uk (Andrew Gabriel) writes:

> In article <o7hvq7di9nri6kirh...@4ax.com>,
> Ibmekon writes:
>> On Sun, 13 May 2012 15:15:42 +0100, Stephen Wolstenholme
>> <st...@npsl1.com> wrote:
>>
>>>On Sun, 13 May 2012 08:56:42 +0000 (UTC), c...@mer.df.lth.se (Christian
>>>Brunschen) wrote:
>>>
>>>>For people like me whose computing involvement started in the age of CRT
>>>>monitors, card punches are not particularly familiar. So this video was
>>>>quite interesting to watch - it shows how to use an 029 (and briefly an
>>>>026) card punch station:
>>>>
>>>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaVwzYN6BP4
>>>>
>>>>Best wishes,
>>>>
>>>>// Christian
>>>
>>>When I was a young DP engineer looking after a room full of punches I
>>>really got to hate them!
>>>
>>>Steve
>>
>> Yeah , but you never had to buy confetti !
>
> Very serious offence to use the chad as confetti.
> The cards are made from stiff card which doesn't soften in water,
> and the chad had sharp square edges. Getting it in an eye could be
> quite serious and could result in a hospital visit. Same with
> paper tape punch chad.

Well, the paper tape chad was round, so no sharp corners, and the stock
was a lot less heavy. Nobody I knew ever got hurt by either, but that
was no doubt partly because we didn't throw either one around casually.

> This was a standard part of the Health and Safety talk at all
> computer organisations I worked at in the early days.
> Togther with slicing through flesh when winding up a paper tape,
> twisting a wrist off removing a 14" disk pack that hadn't spun
> down, and all sorts other other gruesome things one could do in
> a real computer room. Life is just so boring nowadays...

Never did get any sort of formal talk on that stuff, back then. I don't
recall ever even thinking about the disk pack issue (and I changed 14"
removable packs a lot). But then I never came close to putting the
cover on before it stopped spinning, either.
--
David Dyer-Bennet, dd...@dd-b.net; http://dd-b.net/
Snapshots: http://dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/data/
Photos: http://dd-b.net/photography/gallery/
Dragaera: http://dragaera.info

[Ibmekon]

On Mon, 14 May 2012 18:51:17 +0000 (UTC), and...@cucumber.demon.co.uk
(Andrew Gabriel) wrote:

<rttfm>

>
>Very serious offence to use the chad as confetti.
>The cards are made from stiff card which doesn't soften in water,
>and the chad had sharp square edges. Getting it in an eye could be
>quite serious and could result in a hospital visit. Same with
>paper tape punch chad.
>
>This was a standard part of the Health and Safety talk at all
>computer organisations I worked at in the early days.
>Togther with slicing through flesh when winding up a paper tape,
>twisting a wrist off removing a 14" disk pack that hadn't spun
>down, and all sorts other other gruesome things one could do in
>a real computer room. Life is just so boring nowadays...

Health nor safety did exist when I started.

Do remember a polite warning that a tie should be hidden away while
dealing with a 1403 line printer - as it was difficult to reach the
POWER off button whilst being strangled.

The health of the mainframe was paramount.

At one time, there was a problem with persistent tape read errors on
3420 units.
First tape drives were cleaned and tapes were degaussed. No deal.
New tapes used. Nope.

CEs were invited to check the drives.
Checks made, test tapes loaded , and read-write tests came up clean.
A few days later, the same problem of read errors recurred.

The problem was escalated and an engineer flown in from the factory in
France that made the drive.
After many checks he noticed that an operator dismounted a tape and
left it on the back end of a disk drive. Ooops.


Carl Goldsworthy

[David Dyer-Bennet]

and...@cucumber.demon.co.uk (Andrew Gabriel) writes:

> In article <jont0a$6ds$1...@dont-email.me>,
> c...@mer.df.lth.se (Christian Brunschen) writes:
>> For people like me whose computing involvement started in the age of CRT
>> monitors, card punches are not particularly familiar. So this video was
>> quite interesting to watch - it shows how to use an 029 (and briefly an
>> 026) card punch station:
>>
>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaVwzYN6BP4
>
> I arrived at University the year the online system went live,
> but all the staff were familiar with punch cards, and the status
> symbol in the physics department for a staff member was to have
> your own 029 punch in your office. Meanwhile, the undergrads
> quickly got online using the terminals, although we had to do
> some punch card work as many programs existed as decks of cards,
> and our teachers only new the card job submission system.

Wow, there were never more than the two in the Academic computer center
and the two or three in the Administrative data processing center at
Carleton; no private keypunches for anybody. We started converting to
online in I guess 1970, a couple of years before I became a student (I
worked for the data processing center while I was in highschool).

> Then someone discovered there was over $1000 worth of platinum
> (or some other expensive metal) on the contacts inside the 029
> punches, and they virtually all vanished overnight. The computer
> center had difficulty retaining even one for editing legacy
> card decks.

Ouch, that much? No wonder we had so few, if they were that expensive!

[hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com]

On May 14, 10:31 am, Peter Flass <Peter_Fl...@Yahoo.com> wrote:

> Yes, to dup one card.  OP was talking about duping a whole deck by
> interleaving source cards with blanks.
>
> Personally. I'd just have used a tab machine or a utility on the mainframe.

yes, I wouldn't have bothered playing around with a keypunch machine
like that to duplicate a deck--I'd just use the mainframe. A lot
easier, probably faster, and safer.

[Charles Richmond]

"David Dyer-Bennet" <dd...@dd-b.net> wrote in message
news:ylfkd366...@dd-b.net...
>
> [snip...] [snip...]
> [snip...]

>
> Never did get any sort of formal talk on that stuff, back then. I don't
> recall ever even thinking about the disk pack issue (and I changed 14"
> removable packs a lot). But then I never came close to putting the
> cover on before it stopped spinning, either.
>

ISTM that the disk packs on the Harris 300 meg removable disks (rebranded
CDC drives) had an *interlock* that prevented the cover from being opened
before the disk had completely spun down. Of course, when you hit the "OFF"
button, the heads withdraw from the pack right away, but it may take 30
seconds plus before the disk drive has completely spun down and the disk
pack is *no* longer rotating.

The interlock prevented people who were in a hurry... from attempting to
remove the disk pack too soon.

--

numerist at aquaporin4 dot com

[Freddy1X]

Charles Richmond wrote:
( cuts )

> ISTM that the disk packs on the Harris 300 meg removable disks (rebranded
> CDC drives) had an *interlock* that prevented the cover from being opened
> before the disk had completely spun down. Of course, when you hit the
> "OFF"
> button, the heads withdraw from the pack right away, but it may take 30
> seconds plus before the disk drive has completely spun down and the disk
> pack is *no* longer rotating.
>
> The interlock prevented people who were in a hurry... from attempting to
> remove the disk pack too soon.

The CDC SMD 60meg top loading drives we used on Datapoint systems had no
interlocking latch. I had one customer who was proud of his "speed
changing" ability. He could not wait the approximately 10 seconds it took
for the dynamic brake to stop the disk from spinning. Or the approximately
3 minutes it took when the brake failed. Then he would use his hand on the
top platter to slow the disk. ( Shudders )

Freddy,
still having all fingers.

--
Remove these edges first.



/|>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\|

/| I may be demented \|

/| but I'm not crazy! \|

/|<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\|

* SPAyM trap: there is no X in my address *

[Joe Morris]

"jmfbahciv" <See....@aol.com> wrote:

> You could have two programs on a drum card. Wasn't the aux key used to
> tell
> the keypunch to use the lower program? Or am I completely misremembering?

You're thinking of ALT PGM, which caused the program card punches to be read
from rows 4-9 (bottom half) instead of 12-3 (upper half). The rows had the
same meaning: 12 and 4 were field definition, 11 and 5 skip, 12, and 6 dup,
etc.

Joe

[Charlie Gibbs]

In article <jortfe$c61$1...@dont-email.me>, nume...@aquaporin4.com

(Charles Richmond) writes:

> "David Dyer-Bennet" <dd...@dd-b.net> wrote in message
> news:ylfkd366...@dd-b.net...
>
>> [snip...] [snip...]
>> [snip...]
>>
>> Never did get any sort of formal talk on that stuff, back then.
>> I don't recall ever even thinking about the disk pack issue (and
>> I changed 14" removable packs a lot). But then I never came close
>> to putting the cover on before it stopped spinning, either.
>
> ISTM that the disk packs on the Harris 300 meg removable disks
> (rebranded CDC drives) had an *interlock* that prevented the cover
> from being opened before the disk had completely spun down. Of
> course, when you hit the "OFF" button, the heads withdraw from
> the pack right away, but it may take 30 seconds plus before the
> disk drive has completely spun down and the disk pack is *no*
> longer rotating.

Either those drives didn't have decent braking, or the brake was
broke. Univac drives brought the disk to a stop in 5 seconds or
less (dynamic braking on the newer drives, mechanical braking on
the 8411 and 8414, their 2311 and 2314 clones).

> The interlock prevented people who were in a hurry... from
> attempting to remove the disk pack too soon.

One cold winter night I went to a customer site and needed
to mount my pack, which had been sitting in the car and was
thoroughly cold-soaked. When I mounted it on a drive spindle
in the (relatively) warm machine room, I noticed that the
platters were coated with a thick layer of condensation.
I wasn't stupid enough to try to mount the pack as is, but
I had watched enough CEs to know where the interlocks were.
By doing the right moves I got the drive to start spinning
up the pack, but released the interlock before it tried to
load the heads. After doing this several times the pack was
warm and dry, and I was able to mount it without problems.

[Joe Morris]

<Ibmekon> wrote:

> Do remember a polite warning that a tie should be hidden away while
> dealing with a 1403 line printer - as it was difficult to reach the
> POWER off button whilst being strangled.

One of the tongue-in-cheek "policies" at many shops governed the use of the
Emergency Power Off switch. Its operation was forbidden unless the CE's tie
was caught in the card punch mechanism.

I'm unable to recall who it was, but at one SHARE meeting an attendee had
taken an EPO knob and was wearing it as a lapel pin.

Joe

[grey...@mail.com]

Starring Stephen Fry, renowned from his part in Blackadder?
Show is Ok, but stephens ego is offputting now.


--
maus
.
.
...

[Andrew Gabriel]

In article <jortfe$c61$1...@dont-email.me>,

We had a few cases of the interlock not working.
The operators would often just stand there repeatedly trying the
catch whilst talking amongst themselves, and there was a danger
they would open the lid and try to engage the cover whilst the
pack is still spinning. None of ours ever did this AFAIK, but
there were cases of it out there in the industry.

[Ibmekon]

The thing most dreaded when I worked on an Ibm 370 was an uncontrolled
power down.

When the CEs finally arrived (my guess is they drew straws) - it
seemed to take around half a day to reset all the trips ready for a
normal IMPL load.

At this stage, there would be open panels on the processor , control
units , card reader etc.

When all the lights came on, one by one, it was like an early
Christmas.

To obviate this, there was a very heavy motor unit about the size of a
washing machine lying down.
Unlike the lilies of the field, this did spin - and that was all it
did.
On a power outage, it switched into a generator , long enough to allow
a graceful power down.


Carl Goldsworthy

[Ibmekon]

<all gone, no more!>

>>
>> I dont know if you can get a UK show called "Quite Interesting", also
>> referred to as QI.
>> Its my "must not miss" show for a while.
>>
>> Carl Goldsworthy
>>
>
>Starring Stephen Fry, renowned from his part in Blackadder?
>Show is Ok, but stephens ego is offputting now.

Mebbe so.
But it gives rise to the likes of Phil Jupitus sending him up.

I just like the way the show demonstrates how clueless we ALL can be.

An example in one epsiode is the diagram of taste centers on the
tongue - taught to me in school.
Turns out they do not exist - as anyone can easily verify.
Doh !


Carl Goldsworthy

[jmfbahciv]

Ibmekon wrote:
> On 14 May 2012 12:31:49 GMT, jmfbahciv <See....@aol.com> wrote:
>
>>Peter Flass wrote:
>>> On 5/13/2012 6:13 AM, Ibmekon wrote:
>>>> Thanks for the memories.
>>>>
>>>> I dimly remember duplicating a deck of cards by interleaving it with
>>>> blank cards and feeding the lot in.
>>>>
>>>> But I cannot remember if you could walk away while it copied the
>>>> cards. Maybe a program card used.
>>>>
>>>
>>> I 'm pretty sure it wasn't possible on an 029 or similar. A buffered
>>> punch like the 129, or a Univac or Burroughs punch, perhaps.
>>>
>>To dup the whole card? It's possible to code the drum card to do that.
>>
>>/BAH
>
> BTW you mentioned elsewhere that you enjoyed "The Big Bang Theory".
>
> I had ignored it - the trailers made it seem like just another teenage
> comedy.
>
> The 6-7pm hour here has wall-to-wall news programs.
> I flicked channels, and watched TBBT, and now I have an alternative to
> the dreary news.

I haven't seen it since I moved here (3.5 years ago) but the espisodes
before that were quite funny. the humor isn't aimed at 1 year olds
like most of the shows now are.

>
> I dont know if you can get a UK show called "Quite Interesting", also
> referred to as QI.
> Its my "must not miss" show for a while.
>

I don't think I've heard of that one. I'll try to remember to pay
attention if I hear the title.

Thanks.

/BAH

[jmfbahciv]

Peter Flass wrote:

> On 5/14/2012 8:31 AM, jmfbahciv wrote:
>> Peter Flass wrote:
>>> On 5/13/2012 6:13 AM, Ibmekon wrote:
>>>> Thanks for the memories.
>>>>
>>>> I dimly remember duplicating a deck of cards by interleaving it with
>>>> blank cards and feeding the lot in.
>>>>
>>>> But I cannot remember if you could walk away while it copied the
>>>> cards. Maybe a program card used.
>>>>
>>>
>>> I 'm pretty sure it wasn't possible on an 029 or similar. A buffered
>>> punch like the 129, or a Univac or Burroughs punch, perhaps.
>>>
>> To dup the whole card? It's possible to code the drum card to do that.
>>
>> /BAH
>

> Yes, to dup one card. OP was talking about duping a whole deck by
> interleaving source cards with blanks.
>
> Personally. I'd just have used a tab machine or a utility on the mainframe.
>

The reason you wanted to use the keypunch was to get printing over each
character's punch. Neither the computer nor the interpreter would do that.

/BAH

[jmfbahciv]

Yep. that's it. Funny how the names of the keys disappear from memory
but the work techniques are still imbedded.

Thanks for the correction. I haven't thought about using two programs
for a very long time. I had one or two keypunch jobs which required
it. I was so happy :-))).. Nothing like get a pile of papers and
figuring out how to program the drum card with the goal of the least number
of keystrokes in the least amount time. Then, while I was doing the
keypunching work, I'd think about how the job could be improved.

/BAH

[jmfbahciv]

that's because DEC drives applied brakes which made a lot of noise
when you opened the cover and the pack was still spinning. Once
in a while we had a drive which didn't have good brakes so the
operators would open the cover (RP04) and slightly touch the pack
so it would slow down and stop.

/BAH

[Nick Spalding]

jmfbahciv wrote, in <PM0004C01...@ac810ca7.ipt.aol.com>
on 15 May 2012 14:12:14 GMT:

>Joe Morris wrote:
>> "jmfbahciv" <See....@aol.com> wrote:
>>
>>> You could have two programs on a drum card. Wasn't the aux key used to
>>> tell
>>> the keypunch to use the lower program? Or am I completely misremembering?
>>
>> You're thinking of ALT PGM, which caused the program card punches to be read
>> from rows 4-9 (bottom half) instead of 12-3 (upper half). The rows had the
>> same meaning: 12 and 4 were field definition, 11 and 5 skip, 12, and 6 dup,
>> etc.
>
>Yep. that's it. Funny how the names of the keys disappear from memory
>but the work techniques are still imbedded.

Your fingers would probably still find them.

>Thanks for the correction. I haven't thought about using two programs
>for a very long time. I had one or two keypunch jobs which required
>it. I was so happy :-))).. Nothing like get a pile of papers and
>figuring out how to program the drum card with the goal of the least number
>of keystrokes in the least amount time. Then, while I was doing the
>keypunching work, I'd think about how the job could be improved.
>
>/BAH

--
Nick Spalding

[Scott Lurndal]

Ibmekon writes:

>
>To obviate this, there was a very heavy motor unit about the size of a
>washing machine lying down.
>Unlike the lilies of the field, this did spin - and that was all it
>did.

My understanding was that this was always a generator (motor-generator)
which generated the 400hz AC required by the mainframe. Our ITEL AS/6
had one.

scott

[Rod Speed]

jmfbahciv <See....@aol.com> wrote
> Peter Flass wrote

>> jmfbahciv wrote
>>> Peter Flass wrote

>>>> Ibmekon wrote

>>>>> Thanks for the memories.

>>>>> I dimly remember duplicating a deck of cards by
>>>>> interleaving it with blank cards and feeding the lot in.

>>>>> But I cannot remember if you could walk away while
>>>>> it copied the cards. Maybe a program card used.

>>>> I 'm pretty sure it wasn't possible on an 029 or similar. A buffered
>>>> punch like the 129, or a Univac or Burroughs punch, perhaps.

>>> To dup the whole card? It's possible to code the drum card to do that.

>> Yes, to dup one card. OP was talking about duping
>> a whole deck by interleaving source cards with blanks.

>> Personally. I'd just have used a tab machine or a utility on the
>> mainframe.

> The reason you wanted to use the keypunch was to get printing over each
> character's punch. Neither the computer nor the interpreter would do
> that.

The better computer punches could and there were interpreters that would
print the text on cards that the computer produced that were not printed
too.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpreter_(computing)#Punched_card_interpreter

[David Dyer-Bennet]

The later disks I used might have been essentially the same -- DEC RP06,
which I believe were also rebranded CDC (but I may be confusing that
with using CDC packs in them).

[Freddy1X]

Charles Richmond wrote:
( cuts )

> Probably if the power were removed from the drive (or the electricity got
> turned off somehow), the drive probably used the kinetic energy of the
> pack to generate enough current to withdraw the heads from the pack and
> prevent a
> head crash. I had a 40 meg Winchester MFM drive from a PC that worked
> this
> way. If you turned the power off, the heads would be withdrawn and
> auto-parked... well before the platters spun down.

On most of the drives that I worked with, the "emergency retract" power was
provided by a big capacitor. There was an impressive "whop!" when the E.R.
slammed the heads back at >100% normal speed. A CE could trigger the ER by
pushing too hard against the servo drive, such as when you were aligning
the heads( and had tools directly engaged in said machinery ). Fortunately
I never tripped one.

Freddy,
all fingers and tools intact.

--
Do not purchase if bag is open or torn.

[Charlie Gibbs]

In article <PO2dnbZ3SrGYTi_S...@earthlink.com>,

fred...@indyX.netx (Freddy1X) writes:

> Charles Richmond wrote:
>
>( cuts )
>
>> Probably if the power were removed from the drive (or the electricity
>> got turned off somehow), the drive probably used the kinetic energy
>> of the pack to generate enough current to withdraw the heads from the
>> pack and prevent a head crash. I had a 40 meg Winchester MFM drive
>> from a PC that worked this way. If you turned the power off, the
>> heads would be withdrawn and auto-parked... well before the platters
>> spun down.
>
> On most of the drives that I worked with, the "emergency retract"
> power was provided by a big capacitor. There was an impressive
> "whop!" when the E.R. slammed the heads back at >100% normal speed.
> A CE could trigger the ER by pushing too hard against the servo
> drive, such as when you were aligning the heads( and had tools
> directly engaged in said machinery ). Fortunately I never
> tripped one.

Someone told me of a site where said capacitor was replaced, and
the replacement was wired backwards. Apparently when the power
was turned on there was a loud hum, which turned into a squeal -
followed by an explosion that blew electrolyte everywhere.

[Joe Morris]

<Ibmekon> wrote:

> The thing most dreaded when I worked on an Ibm 370 was an uncontrolled
> power down.

> When the CEs finally arrived (my guess is they drew straws) - it
> seemed to take around half a day to reset all the trips ready for a
> normal IMPL load.

> At this stage, there would be open panels on the processor , control
> units , card reader etc.

Dumping power was certainly not a desirable way to treat the system, but I
don't recall ever needing CE assistance to bring the system back up. (We
never had an EPO pulled, but all that it took to restore the switch was a
small screwdriver.) In any case all that happened in the computer and
peripheral frames was that the main power relay dropped out.

That was how it worked: one of the wires in the 6-pin power control cable
(universally called, somewhat misleadingly, the "EPO cable") was +24V
supplied from the CPU through its EPO switch. Loss of that +24V at a
peripheral was the way that EPO was signaled.

In the past 45 years I've held two full-time, full-year IT jobs; in the
first one we didn't have any UPS capability (sadly, the power there wasn't
particularly stable, which led me to buy an obscenely expensive Dranitz
power line event recorder so that I could argue with the physical plant
klutzes), but at the second job we had 90 KVA of UPS, which I soon increased
to 190 KVA. Back in the 1980s the power in that area was also somewhat
unreliable, so the investment in UPS (a pair of Exide 2045s and an Exide
8100) was worth it.

However...one day Physical plant, without notifying my operations manager,
brought in a FS guy to work on the fire alarm - and the idjut managed to
trip the emergency UPS shutdown circuit. IIRC at the time we were using the
UPS capacity to support a top-end 4381 MP, three vaxen and one or two
uvaxen, the head end for a Sytek broadband async net, a couple of Wang OIS
systems, the modem pool and, I suspect, the operators' coffee pot.
KerCHUNK.

It's amazing how loud dead silence can be.

Joe

[Ibmekon]

<Snip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah>

>
>My understanding was that this was always a generator (motor-generator)
>which generated the 400hz AC required by the mainframe. Our ITEL AS/6
>had one.
>
>scott

Hi,

That seems to be correct.
http://smud.apogee.net/comsuite/content/ces/?utilid=smud&id=1586
This href gives the general principles - no pictures of one in
operation with mainframe.

One plant I worked at had an ex-submarine diesel generator.
It could never be used - the accountants would not ok the fuel
carrying cost.



Carl Goldsworthy

[Ibmekon]

<...>

>However...one day Physical plant, without notifying my operations manager,
>brought in a FS guy to work on the fire alarm - and the idjut managed to
>trip the emergency UPS shutdown circuit. IIRC at the time we were using the
>UPS capacity to support a top-end 4381 MP, three vaxen and one or two
>uvaxen, the head end for a Sytek broadband async net, a couple of Wang OIS
>systems, the modem pool and, I suspect, the operators' coffee pot.
>KerCHUNK.
>
>It's amazing how loud dead silence can be.
>
>Joe
>

It certainly is, Stanley. (Laurel & Hardy)

At a plant off the Tottenham Court road, London the exec over DP was
showing some clients around the IBM 370/135 computer room.
He explained the failsafe systems - and demonstrated by pushing the
POWER OFF switch. Quite why Harry Wilkinson did this, no-one knew.
It certainly went quiet awhile.
As you say , powering back up after a normal power down such as this
was straightforward.
The CICS database recovery for online systems, ok , but iccky with
disk and tape changing.
Looking back at the particular mainframe concerned, I think of the
possibility that the IMPL microcode was fragile.
That machine could not be powered up without a functioning card
reader.


Carl Goldsworthy

[Harry Vaderchi]

On Mon, 14 May 2012 15:10:25 +0100, <Ibmekon> wrote:

> On 14 May 2012 12:31:49 GMT, jmfbahciv <See....@aol.com> wrote:
>
>> Peter Flass wrote:

>>> On 5/13/2012 6:13 AM, Ibmekon wrote:
>>>> Thanks for the memories.
>>>>
>>>> I dimly remember duplicating a deck of cards by interleaving it with
>>>> blank cards and feeding the lot in.
>>>>
>>>> But I cannot remember if you could walk away while it copied the
>>>> cards. Maybe a program card used.
>>>>
>>>
>>> I 'm pretty sure it wasn't possible on an 029 or similar. A buffered
>>> punch like the 129, or a Univac or Burroughs punch, perhaps.
>>>
>> To dup the whole card? It's possible to code the drum card to do that.
>>

>> /BAH
>
> BTW you mentioned elsewhere that you enjoyed "The Big Bang Theory".
>
> I had ignored it - the trailers made it seem like just another teenage
> comedy.
>
> The 6-7pm hour here has wall-to-wall news programs.
> I flicked channels, and watched TBBT, and now I have an alternative to
> the dreary news.
>

> I dont know if you can get a UK show called "Quite Interesting", also
> referred to as QI.
> Its my "must not miss" show for a while.

I grated after a while, with Fry so up himself.
>
> Carl Goldsworthy
>
>
>


--
[dash dash space newline 4line sig]

Albi CNU

[Ibmekon]

On Fri, 18 May 2012 13:30:59 +0100, "Harry Vaderchi" <ad...@127.0.0.1>
wrote:

>On Mon, 14 May 2012 15:10:25 +0100, <Ibmekon> wrote:

<snip>

>> I dont know if you can get a UK show called "Quite Interesting", also
>> referred to as QI.
>> Its my "must not miss" show for a while.
>
>I grated after a while, with Fry so up himself.
>>

It happens.

Remember Angus Deayton as host of "Have I Got News For You" ?

Over the years he got more and more smug in the celebrity role.

Eventually he was caught by a newspaper in a sex & drugs scandal.

The subsequent episodes , before he left the show were unforgettable.
I remember Paul Merton wore a print teeshirt with the Sunday newspaper
front page.

Carl Goldsworthy

[Gene Wirchenko]

On 14 May 12 09:55:25 -0800, "Charlie Gibbs" <cgi...@kltpzyxm.invalid>
wrote:

[snip]

>I love your term "banksters" - I'll have to start using that.
>
>A local credit union was running TV ads where a couple of people
>would go into a darkened basement, shining flashlights around.
>Occasionally they'd spot someone wearing suspenders and clutching
>some papers, who would scurry away, ratlike, behind a filing cabinet.
>"Yup," one of the searchers would say, "you've got bankers."

Capital One credit card. On YouTube.

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko