Ever used keypunch cards?

[datasuspect]

or a cassette tape to store data?

[Az]

1. Yes

And damn you for reminding me. Hollerith Cards. Good grief what a bad idea.

[seriousstan]

2. Yep, used pencil marked cards on a Wang .

[amazona]

3. yes NT

.

The conservation movement is a breeding ground of communists
and other subversives. We intend to clean them out,
even if it means rounding up every birdwatcher in the country.
--John Mitchell, US Attorney General 1969-72

[SaveElmer]

4. In college...showin my age

Took a COBOL class when I was a freshman and we had to use them...repalced with thise huge CRT's a year later

[bleedingheart]

5. Yes....

I remember working in a computer lab after our last punch card reader had been thrown away...and this poor fellow came in with a FORTRAN program on his punch cards...he wanted to know how to convert them to a different style of media.....I thought he might cry when we had nothing we could do for him...

As for cassettes...I still know people who use J-tape media to back up...scary....

[mopinko]

6. yup

any reason for you to make us all feel old?

[datasuspect]

12. slow day

don't feel old!

[liberal N proud]

7. OH Those were the days

Done both.
I remember sitting at a key puch station for hours and then the program didn't work and you had to start over.
I think I still have tapes from the days when you could save data to cassete.
Found some old 8 1/2 floppies the other day and pitched them.

[HereSince1628]

8. As a 31J20B3 I did minor repairs to keypunch machines and

keypunch readers! Most of the "IBM card" stuff was handled by company reps, but at 2 o'clock in the morning, company reps were hard to come by.

Do YOU remember LINE printers? These machines used spinning cylinders of "letters" as a platen against which 80 hammers smacked the page at the proper time and produced a line of text every couple of seconds?

[ewagner]

9. Yep...

Also remember going to the "computer Center" at 2AM with a deck of cards to get your program run and a printout made to hand in at your 8AM class.....

ahhhhh....those were the days

[Buck Turgidson]

11. my printout was usually nothing but compile errors :-(

n/t

[ewagner]

17. LOL

I had a few of those too...

sadly, a few years later, I was still using them with the STRATEGIC AIR COMMAND!!!!

btw: I like your screen name......which reminded me of the old SAC.

[Buck Turgidson]

19. And who could forget JCL

For me, they were some mysterious commands that you always added to the front and the back of the card deck.

[mikita]

27. oh yeah, same story EXACTLY....

you weren't the long-haired guy at UNC's basement computer center, were you??

[wtmusic]

10. Remember these guys?

*click, click, click, click, click...*

[Buck Turgidson]

14. Or this!

[HereSince1628]

18. OH, 8 level paper tapes! ASCII code, I am trapped by nostalgia

The wonder of PDP8's controlled by Model 38 teletype!

Ahhhh, my life is passing before my eyes!

Am I dead??????????????????????

[Orsino]

13. Not since the seventies.

FORTRAN IV on an IBM 1170 mainframe.

[Jokerman]

15. Both

The character generator I worked on in HS radio & TV class used a cassette tape to store data and my first college level programming class used punch cards.

[yellowcanine]

16. Yes I have and I have also dropped a stack of them on the floor and then

had to try and get them back into the right order to make the program run properly.

[KitchenWitch]

20. cassette tape here

[Festivito]

21. at least I can't recall when they were the size of a dollar bill.

I was great with that 029 drum card.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

22. Yes and yes

Punch cards - college, in a Burroughs B6900, although it had video terminals also. An old IBM had just been decommisioned, and its punch card reader was hooked into the B6900.

Cassette - TRS-80 Models I, III, and CoCo.

[qnr]

23. yes and yes - and paper tape too

[Skittles]

24. I ran a 1969 Honeywell Mainframe all night with keypunch cards

and get this - I COULD READ THE HOLES because our keypunch printer quit doing the characters years before.

I will never forget the time I had a six-inch stack of them on a card reader which shook and eventually deposited them all on the floor; imagine putting dozens of programs back together in order - I was in panic mode for half the night. :o

[trof]

25. Yes.

Worked for the FAA for a couple of years in the mid 80s.

[Bertha Venation]

26. DO NOT FOLD SPINDLE OR MUTILATE

Never used 'em but I remember when the phone bill came on 'em. :)

[Dervill Crow]

32. Ever shrink the cards?

I don't remember who it was, but I heard some comedian on TV recommend wetting the card and drying it to shrink the holes before sending it back to the phone company. Always wanted to try that but the technology changed before I got around to it.

I took keypunch class in high school preparing for the computer age but never used them on the job; I used an IBM mag card, then Wang, then DEC. Still using the DEC program but they finally figured out how to put it on a PC.

[madinmaryland]

28. Yes i Did.

EE w/computer science minor. 1983.

If you screwed up, you had to feed all of the punchcards in again. Many a late night feeding those damn cards in.

[mikita]

29. does this mean everyone in this thread is >50??

curious minds want to know...

:hi: <over 50>

can't spell either...

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

30. I'm not even 40.

OK, the punchcards were an odd anachronism at college, but use of cassette in home computers was still fairly normal in 1983.

[IcyPeas]

31. do telex machines still exist?

i remember telex tapes -- we had domestic and international machines -- very high tech in the late '70s.

[DU GrovelBot]

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[baldguy]

34. My first programming class was Fortran on punch cards.

All I can say is, thank God the school had a sorting machine.

[Radio_Lady]

35. Chose college courses at UCLA on punch cards in 1959 (n/t)