The following message is a courtesy copy of an article that has been posted to bit.listserv.ibm-main,alt.folklore.computers as well.
rfocht...@ync.net (Rick Fochtman) writes: > Consider, if you will, the sweet innocence of childhood. ;-) How many > of us remember the days of punched cards, either 80-column or > 96-column? Or the 1442 "Multifunction Card Machine", also known as > "Mother Fletcher's Card Mulcher"? Or the venerable 2540? or the 2501 > Optical Card Reader? Or the 3505/3525? 1442 wiki page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_1442 picture of 2560 MFCM (attached to 360-20) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:DM_IBM_S360.jpg 2540 http://www.columbia.edu/acis/history/2540.html my first programming course was introduction to fortran, the univ. had 709 running (tape->tape) ibsys using 1401 providing front-end card->tape and tape->printer/punch (for 709) with program "MPIO" ... tapes were hand moved from 1401 to 709. univ. was selected to replace 709/1401 with 360/67 running tss/360, wiki page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_System/360-67 as part of the process, the 1401 was replaced with 360/30 and could run 1401 hardware emulation with 1403 printer and 2540 card reader/punch. recent reference in this post/thread http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009h.html#12 IBM Mainframe: 50 Years of Big Iron Innovation above mentions I got student job to "port" the 1401 MPIO program to 360/30 (running native), even tho the program ran fine in 1401 hardware emulation (i got to design and implement my own monitor, interrupt handler, device drivers, console interface, storage management, etc). eventually 360/67 arrived, replacing the 709 & 360/30 ... but tss/360 wasn't ready ... so it spent its time as 360/65 running os/360. the univ. did registration when class information was entered on card with number two pencil. The cards were run through 519 reproducing punch with mark sense feature. under os/360, cobol program read the punch cards (from 2540) and processed the information as part of registration. the 2540 had card punch feed on one side and card reader feed on the other side with five stackers in the middle ... two for the punch, two for the reader, and one in the middle that could used by both reader & punch. I got to do the 2540 channel programming for the registration program. All the class registration cards were plain manila, being read one at a time into the (common) center stacker. The registration program would do some validity checking of a read card and if there was an some error, punch a blank card into the center stacker (following the card in error). The punch feed was loaded with cards that had a colored stripe along the top edge. After processing, with all the cards back into card trays (about box & half of cards or around 3000 per tray) ... it was easy to pick out registration cards with problems because of the colored top-edge of the blank punch card. punch card wiki page ... includes pictures of cards ... along with top-edge of a box (2000) of cards. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_programming_in_the_punch_card_era university also required that punch card jobs be submitted using plain manilla cards and IBSYS/JCL/WATFOR job cards punched on top-edge "red stripe" cards. Submitted jobs were collected in card tray and load of cards were periodically loaded into the 2540 for processing (and placed back in card tray). eventually there was pile of printed output. the operator would split off a job's printed output (using "seperator" page to delimit print job) ... match it with the next card deck job in the card tray ... identified/deliminated by the top edge red stripe card(s) ... for most jobs, the folded printed output and the card deck would then be wrapped with rubber band. job submission area had large open "mail boxes" (with no doors over the front). job output would be placed in appropriate box based on person's last name. output would be found by looking through everything in the box for your name. -- 40+yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@bama.ua.edu with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
