[GreenKeys] OT: New coffee-table book on punched cards

[Doug Alderdice]

Ah, the punch card wreaths!  I was going to mention that, but my post 
was getting lengthy.  An aunt of my mom's had one of those, the aunt 
worked in the accounting office of NY Tel.  I couldn't tell you now who 
made the wreath, whether it was the aunt or maybe someone in her office. 
  Hers was painted all red.

Doug, KA2WFT

On 2/12/2020 9:43 AM, Ralph Irish wrote:
> *From: *"Ralph Irish" <w8roi at wowway.com>
> *To: *ka2wft at arrl.net
> *Sent: *Wednesday, February 12, 2020 9:40:52 AM
> *Subject: *Re: [GreenKeys] OT: New coffee-table book on punched cards
> 
> One of my ham radio friends was a computer programmer for GM back in the 
> 1970s or so.
> He used to bring home several hundred cards so his wife and mine could 
> make Christmas
> wreathes.  Cards were spray painted with random red and green, fast-dry 
> paint, and then
> each card was folded in a certain way to be stapled to others, and 
> gradually, the total array
> was formed into a circle and the two ends stapled together.
> 
> One year there were a handful of cards left over.  Maybe 50.  I took 
> them to work and
> gave them to the computer operator who worked the midnight shift.  He 
> went over to the
> card sorter and ran them through several times, with different 
> parameters.  He then took the
> resulting stack to a  reader connected to a printer.  (The printer was a 
> Model 35, connected
> to an electronic keyboard.)
> 
> Since I worked for Ford, it was interesting to see the reaction of the 
> computer operator as
> he realized what was showing on the printout.  Things relating to budget 
> and purchasing
> at the GM Tech Center in Warren, Michgan.  My friend did not work there, 
> but his work
> had 'connections' all over the company.
> 
> He was astounded when I handed him the printout.  Most curious as to 
> where it came from!
> I told him and also mentioned that the cards were brought back home and 
> used for 'note paper'
> over some following months.
> 
> I think that was the last year for IBM Christmas wreathes.
> 
> 73,
> 
> Ralph - W8ROI
> 
> (Then, there were the apocryphal stories about individuals adding a few 
> punches
>   here and there and getting strange results from the company that got 
> them back
>   in the mail.  I heard one fellow used the last card in a stack of 36, 
> as the final
>   payment on his car.  He got a 'paid in full' statement from the bank, 
> only to have
>   another a week or so later nullifying the first one.  Someone caught 
> the trick!)
> 
> -   -   -   -   -   -   -   -
> 
> *From: *"Doug Alderdice" <ka2wft at arrl.net>
> *To: *greenkeys at mailman.qth.net
> *Sent: *Wednesday, February 12, 2020 9:26:15 AM
> *Subject: *Re: [GreenKeys] OT: New coffee-table book on punched cards
> 
> Yes, 80-col cards were everywhere at one time.  I recall them coming in
> the NY Telephone bills to be returned with your payment.  When I started
> teaching HS in the mid-80s they would build the class report lists for
> grading by handing each student a stack of 80-col cards punched with
> their name and student # in homeroom one morning and then they'd give
> one to each teacher throughout the day, and we as teachers were given a
> stack of cards punch with course/class period info and we'd build a deck
> for each class period and turn it all in at the end of the day.  That
> continued surprisingly late; it was well into the 90s that we were still
> doing that.
> 
> The NYS Thruway (I-90) for eons handed each motorist an 80-col card when
> they entered and on it was printed the toll for each exit, and it was
> punched (round hole punches, so whatever system that was) with the toll
> entrance number and vehicle class.  You handed that over with your toll
> payment at your exit.
> 
> I cut my programming teeth with 80-column cards.  My high school had a
> comp sci program and an IBM 360/30.  We did all our programming in
> Fortran, though COBOL and one or two other languages were available on
> the system we had; RP/G, maybe?  I did a couple of programs in COBOL
> just for grins, but everything else was Fortran.  The one computer
> teacher used to write hall passes on the backs of discarded punch cards,
> which were of course extremely plentiful in the key punch room.
> 
> Doug, KA2WFT
> 
> On 2/12/2020 12:30 AM, Harold Hallikainen wrote:
>  > Looks like a nice book! I was recently looking at early hard drive
>  > information and read that IBM did not want the capacity of the hard 
> drives
>  > to get too high because it would compete with the punched card business.
>  >
>  > I remember getting various things on punched cards. An IRS tax refund
>  > check was a punched card. When I first registered for college classes,
>  > we'd wander around the gym collecting a card for each class we wanted to
>  > take. We'd turn the stack in with our student card at the end to get
>  > assigned to classes. The phone bill from Pacific Telephone also came with
>  > a punched card to return with your check.
>  >
>  > The coding of punched cards for alpha characters seems like it was an
>  > afterthought. It looks like they were originally just numeric and then
>  > added a couple more rows to allow coding of alphabetic characters. I just
>  > read on Wikipedia that there WAS some binary coding on the cards
>  > (including putting a pair of 36 bit words across the card instead of
>  > encoding in columns). I suspect the original use in looms was a binary
>  > code (each hole caused the loom to select one of two positions on
>  > something), but the use in the census just counted how many cards had a
>  > hole in a particular position which made binary difficult. Still, binary
>  > code on paper tape was introduced around 1900, and it seems binary code
>  > could certainly have been used on cards. They could have started out with
>  > 80 columns of ASCII!
>  >
>  > Looks like a great book. Thanks for sharing!
>  >
>  > Harold
>  >
>  >> A new book has come out that I helped create:
>  >>    Print Punch
>  >>    published by CentreCentre, London
>  >>    40 pounds sterling for the special edition (print run, 100 books)
>  >>    30 pounds sterling for the regular edition (print run, 700 books)
>  >>
>  >> Here is the publisher's book list:
>  >> -- https://centrecentre.co.uk/collections/frontpage
>  >>
>  >> The book includes 178 images of punched cards from my collection, mostly
>  >> featuring corporate logos or business forms from around the world.  The
>  >> expensive special edition differs from the regular edition only in:  A
>  >> different color of cover, the addition of a big fat rubber band, and the
>  >> inclusion of an actual punched card from my stock of spare cards 
> (held on
>  >> by the rubber band)..
>  >>
>  >> The IBM archives also provided lots of content and there are some essays
>  >> by others.  It's a nice coffee table book, and a good way for me to make
>  >> the content of my punched card collection more widely available.
>  >>
>  >> It definitely counts as an art book, not a technical reference, but 
> still,
>  >> it seems at least tangentially relevant here.
>  >>
>  >>                  Doug Jones
>  >>                  jones at cs.uiowa.edu
>  >>
>  >> PS:  They paid me, if you can call it that, with a few copies of the
>  >> regular edition.  I don't expect any royalty checks as a result of the
>  >> astounding sales bump this e-mail will certainly produce as people 
> rush to
>  >> buy a useless but pretty book.
>  >>
>  >> PPS:  Yes, if you really want to, you may forward this e-mail 
> anywhere you
>  >> want.  Don't bother asking my permission.