On Wed, 2 Apr 2008, Mikkel L. Ellertson wrote:
Les wrote:
On my punch cards they did. Every card had a number sequential to the
sequence. The punch we used inserted them automatically. Well, the
programming card did. The reference number used for calls may have been
different, but I don't remember it.
Our programs were HUGE, multiple trays. Each tray was denoted by the
color of the diagonal line. We had 8 colors, so I guess we never had
more than 8 trays, because I don't remember pairs of lines anywhere.
Regards,
Les H
Was the number actually punched in the card, or was it only printed on the
top of the card? Printed on the top of the card would not require any
modification of the card reader routine, and would not eat up columns on the
punch card. If I remember correctly, you only had 80/card.
If the number was punched, I could picture a program that would re-order the
program based on the number, if the cards were messed up, but you would
probably have needed a mini-computer to do that, and feed it to the
mainframe.
I seem to recall that the machine room at school had a card sorter which
would mechanically sort the cards. That sorter wasn't used much by the
time I got there as there was enough virtual memory on the computer(s) for
the school to perform the sort in memory and repunch (for a fee). Best to
not reorder your deck.
