On Wed, 2008-04-02 at 13:21 -0500, 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. > > Mikkel No you didn't, we used a card sorter, it was a mechanical affair, with a drum that fed the cards past brushes which would touch the drum through the hole in the card. This would activate a relay which would pick up the appropriate stack of feeding reeds which routed the card to the correct one of 10 locations. You selected which column to sort, and started with the highest order column first (If I remember correctly). We also had mechanical tape readers, the small hole in the center of the tape was the drive. Small fingers would sense the holes punched in the tape. 5 level, caps+numbers+a limited number of punctuation marks. I also helped clean and adjust the teleltypes. Do any of you know what the "stunt box" is? Regards, Les H
