On Wed, 27 May 2009 18:22:22 +0000, Ted MacNEIL <[email protected]> wrote:
>>When I was a systems programmer at ADR, we had one programmer with the bad habit of resting his box of punch cards on the 1403 > >BTDT. >... Or, ... On the the punch side of the 2540 there was a little platform about 1 card's width and about 1/2 inch higher that the rest of the punch stacker mechanism. A box of cards inaccurately placed on platform would slant slightly forwards or backward. And the lid of the card box (which was just 2 folds away from being a continuation of the bottom of the box) would hang nearly straight down. If a full box of cards was placed so it slanted backwards, and if the box was well used so that the two flaps in back had lost some of its muscle, and if the punch was punching so that the whole machine was vibrating slightly, you could watch from across the room as several inches of cards gently pushed the flaps out of the way and slid to the floor. Not the whole box; just 3 or 4 inches of cards. <sigh> > >Also, a note on chad. >We used to go around to the key punches and dump them all into a plastic bag. >Then, on a saturday night, in the dorm, we would tape the opening around the gap at the bottom of the door of one resident. >Then, we would put a large slab of wood on the bag, and jump on it. >It was 'better' than shaving cream. >POOFF! >They would find the stuff, months later, in the most awkward places. >.. Yup. Chad looked like fun. At that age we didn't think much about it, but those things had VERY sharp corners. Not good in eyes. I never saw anybody hurt but a friend that worked in the college datacenter did. Eyes are safer in the modern datacenter. Paper tape chad (if it was called that) was much more user friendly and being much lighter than card chips, would fly much farther. Mylar tape chad was even better. Pat O'Keefe ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
