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Reading Punch Cards on Today's Hardware?

Posted by Cliff on from the when-you-absolutely-positively-HAVE-to-read-obsolete-media dept.

Gone Jackal asks: "I've run into a ludicrous situation. I'm a classicist at the University of Chicago, finishing off my undergraduate career with a bachelor's thesis. As part of this, I'm working on poetry and meter in Vergil. Imagine my joy when I found in the library catalogue a 20 volume set of books on just this topic, published between 1973 and 1985. Now imagine my horror when I open up the first volume and see that the entire work is on punch cards. What the heck do I do with punch cards? The CS department has laughed at me, and mainframe computing says they're not allowed to help since I'm not an administrator. Any suggestions on where to go, what to do to read these, or even find out what's on them? (The series title, in case you wanted to know, is 'Metrische Analysen zu Vergil', by Wilhelm Ott. It's in German)." Oh man...punch cards. I can understand Gone Jackal's frustration, however I'm more surprised that such works weren't converted to better media a long time ago.

3 of 15 comments (clear)

  1. You might contact the author.. by MinusOne · · Score: 3

    With a little research, I found out that he is still at the University of Tübingen in Germany - If the search I did is correct, I think his email address is :
    ott@zdv.uni-tuebingen.de

    He may have his data in a more modern format, or be able to point you to a place where you can find it.

    I don't read German, but the German Amazon.com has his books listed - here is a sample link:

    http://www.amazon.de/exec/obidos/ASIN/3484600314 /qid=971051419/sr=1-6/028-4345424-2850943

    Good luck!

  2. Since all you have to do is read... by Raetsel · · Score: 3
    Why not set up a sheet-fed scanner with a black background and then run the cards through it. (Since they're old, and library materials, see if you can find one with a mostly straight feed path...)

    Then a custom app (of your own -- or a willing CS major's -- design) can look for the presence or absence of contrast in specific locations. Punch cards have registration marks, so exact positioning on the scanner is not terribly an issue. Then you have the data in a machine-readable format, and conversion to something you can use should be the downhill stretch.


    Just an idea, sorry I can't help with an implementation... I hope this gives you some inspiration.

    --

    "...America's great minds of today, teaching America's great minds of tomorrow. Poor bastards." -- A Beautiful Min
  3. Where the hell is your advisor? by Alik · · Score: 3

    If you're doing a thesis, you should have an advisor. This sort of thing is exactly what advisors are for --- you find who has the stuff you need and your advisor kicks ass until you get it. This is one of your basic perqs in a mentoring relationship. I ran into a not-quite-as-bad situation when doing my thesis in CS, and my advisor hassled department and campus admins to get the data I needed into our machines.

    Failing that, search the web for places that have the necessary machine type and beg. Try the comp.* newsgroups. Ask the librarians --- their job is to get you your data. Move your damn ass instead of whining to Slashdot.