Documentation for a punch card reader



  • Is there a decent documentation online of how the old-school 80 column card readers interpreted the punch card? I'm not particularly arsed about the flavor (or were they all the same? I don't know, before my time). Don't ask me why. Sometimes I have strange ideas.



  • Will give you some of the basics anyway.



  •  @locallunatic said:

    Will give you some of the basics anyway.

    The IBM 80-column card and the punch format described by this sentence from that article:

    A 1969 American National Standard defined the punches for 128 characters and was named the Hollerith Punched Card Code (often referred to simply as Hollerith Card Code), honoring Hollerith.

    are, in my limited experience, by far the most common, and probably the information you're looking for.

     



  • @HardwareGeek said:

    The IBM 80-column card and the punch format described by this sentence from that article:

    A 1969 American National Standard defined the punches for 128 characters and was named the Hollerith Punched Card Code (often referred to simply as Hollerith Card Code), honoring Hollerith.

    are, in my limited experience, by far the most common, and probably the information you're looking for.

    That's the format of the deck in my bottom drawer, which I've kept for sedimental reasons. I punched that whole program by hand on a gadget like an overgrown Dymo machine, with a big dial to select what to punch and a big thumpable button to punch it. Would love to watch Blakey using one of those :-)



  • @flabdablet said:

    sedimental
     

    heh


  • Considered Harmful

    @flabdablet said:

    @HardwareGeek said:

    The IBM 80-column card and the punch format described by this sentence from that article:

    A 1969 American National Standard defined the punches for 128 characters and was named the Hollerith Punched Card Code (often referred to simply as Hollerith Card Code), honoring Hollerith.

    are, in my limited experience, by far the most common, and probably the information you're looking for.

    That's the format of the deck in my bottom drawer, which I've kept for sedimental reasons. I punched that whole program by hand on a gadget like an overgrown Dymo machine, with a big dial to select what to punch and a big thumpable button to punch it. Would love to watch Blakey using one of those :-)


    As much as I like to mock Blakey for lack of technical aptitude, "writing" code onto punch cards sounds like the seventh circle of hell.



  • @joe.edwards said:

    As much as I like to mock Blakey for lack of technical aptitude, "writing" code onto punch cards sounds like the seventh circle of hell.

    Only reason I did it that way is because it beat the officially supported method: writing code on a coding form, submitting that at the I/O counter for keypunching, then waiting 24 hours to get back a deck riddled with keypunch operator errors.

    After I found out that RMIT had actual keypunch machines available for student use, I started taking the train into the city and making my card decks there. Then the only thing I had to use Swinburne's hand punches for was fixing the occasional error. You would not believe how much more productive that felt - it was like discovering tab completion for the first time.



  • Doug Jones's punched card codes looks to me like the Ian's Shoelace Site of 80 column punch cards. It's probably about as definitive as you'll get.



  • You might look for:

    ISO 1681:1973. Information processing--Unpunched paper cards--Specification.

    ISO 1682:1973, Information processing--80 columns punched paper cards--Dimensions and location of rectangular punched holes.

    I don't know if there are any free copies available on the Internet.



  • @eric76 said:

    You might look for:

    ISO 1681:1973. Information processing--Unpunched paper cards--Specification.

    ISO 1682:1973, Information processing--80 columns punched paper cards--Dimensions and location of rectangular punched holes.

    I don't know if there are any free copies available on the Internet.

    You do realize this question was asked in September, right? It's February now.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @Ben L. said:

    You do realize this question was asked in September, right? It's February now.
    It's always September. Ever since '93. You're probably a bit young to remember it though.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @PJH said:

    It's always September. Ever since '93.
    I remember how things were before then. You could hold a conversation with someone without having to dumb down everything (or providing links to Wikipedia).



  • @Ben L. said:

    @eric76 said:
    You might look for:

    ISO 1681:1973. Information processing--Unpunched paper cards--Specification.

    ISO 1682:1973, Information processing--80 columns punched paper cards--Dimensions and location of rectangular punched holes.

    I don't know if there are any free copies available on the Internet.

    You do realize this question was asked in September, right? It's February now.

    You're obviously too young to have experienced the turnaround delays at a keypunch center. Five months is not too bad at all.



  • @PJH said:

    @Ben L. said:
    You do realize this question was asked in September, right? It's February now.
    It's always September. Ever since '93. You're probably a bit young to remember it though.

    I was born 9 months after September 1993. Coincidence?


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