• #aicml (unregistered)

    This is clearly Kevin Jewell's father.

  • Nancy (unregistered)

    This article brings back memories. While my boyfriend was in Viet Nam, I had the pleasure of working as one of those Key Punch Girls in 1971-1974. Girls weren't hired for computer operator jobs or programmers in the city I worked. I DO remember the 407. What a gem. No matter how efficient the air conditioning was, the 407 kept us warm throughout the year. We did not need heat from the building boiler during the winter months. The 407 ran 2 shifts per day and on weekends during inventory or testing. I wish you all had more pictures of the card sorters and collators used back then. After the cards were punched, we had to sort them. Sometimes the collator was used to collate and de-collate the cards before and after a job was run. I also remember the wiring. Although I did not do it, I was taught how in case somebody could not get to work. Finally, we would print invoices, checks, reports, etc. The volume of work we did back in a week's time could be done with today's technology in about 1.5 days. ANd we thought switching to magnetic tapes was really modern techology!

  • Snow_Cat (unregistered) in reply to Renny
    Renny:
    Unfortunately I'm not quite old enough to have worked with punchcards, but I have worked alongside those who are - so I'll give you the special secret top tip to save hours of rework...When you have your set of punchcards, put them together and draw a diagonal line across their edges - that way when you trip on the way to the card reader and drop them all on the floor, you can put them back together again in the right order!
    Works with 'recipe' cards with lecture notes too.
  • Neil (unregistered)

    I failed my programming course at University because of COBOL. I hated the language so much I refused to do any assignments that involved it. COBOL is the only major programming language to have been invented by a woman (Admiral Grace Hopper), and is the most verbose of any language.

Leave a comment on “De-Compilin' Back In '71”

Log In or post as a guest

Replying to comment #:

Log Out

« Return to Article