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When PC Still Means 'Punch Card'

Posted by michael on from the do-not-fold-spindle-or-mutilate dept.

ricst writes: "The New York Times reports that there are stll many applications that use punchcards. "Use what?", you say. Slashdotters not yet in their dotage may have never seen these 80 column Hollerith field cards, or the clunky machines that are still used to punch holes in them. And let's not forget the bizarre JCL (Job Control Language) that's needed to be at the front of the deck. Well... turns out many companies still use them, with slight modifications (like the airlines that print a magnetic strip on them)."

17 of 446 comments (clear)

  1. oh yeah... by doooras · · Score: 5, Funny

    after enough holes get punched in your card you get a free sandwich, right?

  2. Use JCL to stop junk mail (postal)? by leighklotz · · Score: 2, Funny

    As a friend asked me recently, I wonder how many applications could cope with someone named "//SYSIN DD *"

    1. Re:Use JCL to stop junk mail (postal)? by Ymerej · · Score: 2, Funny

      Or someone named /. Would that automatically overload the system with requests from all over the world?

    2. Re:Use JCL to stop junk mail (postal)? by doooras · · Score: 2, Funny

      /. is going to be the name of my firstborn.

  3. .net? by hex1848 · · Score: 4, Funny

    heh,

    /me wonders if the .net interpreter can handle punch cards along with the 87 other languages it claims to be able to compile

  4. I see by felipeal · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...that there are stll many applications that use punchcards.

    Like the state-of-art US ellection system...

  5. When I was kid. by TheGeneration · · Score: 2, Funny

    I always found the punch card stories my professors told to be about as enthralling as the "I walked through snow barefoot up hills, both ways" stories my grand daddy told me.

    Both are of equal value. (ie, whine = whine)

    --


    The Generation
    I'd say something witty here, but I'm not that bright.
  6. I can still remember..... by superid · · Score: 3, Funny
    ....sitting at the 029 saying "someday they're gonna bury me face down, 9 edge first"

    SuperID

  7. Re:this is one of my problems with 'geeks'. by 2Bits · · Score: 4, Funny

    Hey dude, upgrading for the sake of upgrading is how you make the economy move. Beside, the US president is asking people to go out and spend money, it's an act of patriotism.

  8. Airman Initiation... by phraktyl · · Score: 5, Funny

    This reminds me of my Air Force days, when I heard many stories of how the Data Center admins would bring in a large bag of chad and dump it on the table in front of the new guy. They would make him sort it into Classified and Unclassified piles, with the Classified chad being anything with a marking on it. After several hours of tedious work, someone would run by and the breeze would mix it all back together on the table, making the poor Airman do it all over...

    I was told that very few realized that they could just treat it *all* as Classified, and burn it. Heh.

    --
    Karma: Marginal (mostly due to the border around the website)
  9. Free Punch Cards by TheMatt · · Score: 4, Funny

    Can't believe I didn't see this link: Free Punch Cards. I especially love the graphical punch your own card.

    --

    Fortran programmer...oh yeah. Array math for life!

  10. They have their uses by Spooky+Possum · · Score: 2, Funny

    We had stacks of them in the lab I used to work in.

    We called them "incremental height adjusters".

    Very useful.

  11. Re:Seen them!? I punched 'em - still have a box .. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny
    You would probably be bored by my stories about entering PDP-11 code on the console switches in octal
    You had octal? Base 8 hadn't been invented yet when I started programming.
  12. JCL by Registered+Coward+v2 · · Score: 3, Funny

    One of the advantages of JCL was you could put a few cards at the front of your deck that said "please do a warm boot" so someone couldn't run a program before you that caused all subesquent programs to be read as data an print mindless gibberish as the "output".

    Nest week: Switching the run and parity error light covers on an 1130 for fun and profit.

    --
    I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
  13. why is this story posted so late? by brer_rabbit · · Score: 4, Funny

    I mean, anyone who relates to this story is probably in bed asleep already. ;)

  14. Re:My College Actually Had a Pre-req Course in JCL by SirSlud · · Score: 3, Funny

    Actually, I think they'd say "Carpe Diem" .. but whats the diff, trolls were never known for their broad liberal educations anyhow ... ;)

    --
    "Old man yells at systemd"
  15. Great Joke by Peridriga · · Score: 4, Funny


    O OOOO O O OO O OO O OO OOO OO
    OO OO OOO O OOOO OOOOO O OO O OOO
    OO OO O O OOO OOO OO O OOO O O
    O0O000O00O0 O O O OOOOO O O OOOOO
    OOO O OO OOO OOOO OO OO O OO OOO
    OO O OO O OOO OOO O O OOOOO O OO
    O O OOOOOO O O OO0O000 O O OOO OO


    I've always loved that joke....