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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)."

9 of 446 comments (clear)

  1. What's so different about this and... by Ieshan · · Score: 3, Insightful

    the magnetic card my university gave me?

    It's really the same principle. I carry around a data representation of who I am, and to verify it, they swipe my data through a little machine before they let me eat, etc. Most of the time, they don't check the face, don't counter-check the name, don't do anything. In fact, I could go eat as most other white males (they'd probably notice if I gave them an african american girl's card, they aren't THAT slow. ;))

    But really, what's so different? We haven't moved to a much better system yet, even though fingerprint ID is readily and widely available, wouldn't require me to carry around an ID card, and wouldn't require the lady who has to swipe my card for me (really, a silly expense for the university).

    Just seems like "modernization" needs to happen in concept as well as "tech", and that it isn't.

    1. Re:What's so different about this and... by schroet · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The difference is that punch cards actually are the data. Your university ID card or my drivers license or credit card only contain enough unique info to allow a positive match to the data on the server side.

      How many megabytes do 80,000 punch cards represent? I wouldn't know where to start the math, but I suspect that if you took 80,000 university ID cards and added up the server side data the university stores for each individual you'd have 1-2 megs per student and I bet a punch card doesn't hold that much!

  2. this is one of my problems with 'geeks'. by perdida · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Technologies, in society, operate on a gradient. The old ones are usually retained until they fall apart, and the new ones are acquired when it's forced upon a business or an individual (usually because everybody else has acquired a new tech, and it's incompatible with the old).

    There are vested interests in old technologies, too. That's why an airport, who's been subcontracting to an old-skewl tech company for years, may have a new iteration of punchcard tech.

    In Africa, for example, the old Datsuns and 286's we throw away are put to good use, and repaired until they fall apart. Most people, there and here, see technology as a necessary evil, not a blessing. They would hate to spend money on, and waste time learning, something new just for its own sake!

    Only a truly myopic perspective - that which worships the new for the newness, and hence also worships the old for its oldness, would consider the use of Punchcards something slash-worthy. I wish there were more perspective on these issues.

    --
    Goat sex free since 2001
    1. Re:this is one of my problems with 'geeks'. by marbury · · Score: 3, Insightful
      What an insipid posting. First of all, why qualify your discussion of technology to "in society," as if the discussion would be different if we were speaking about technology "outside of society"? What would that mean?

      The "gradient" analogy is likewise facile. The line you draw is one-dimensional. What of other dimensions, such as exotic-ness of technology, societal cost, or economic gain? For example, the nuclear weapon is, by your standards, "old technology", yet it is certainly exotic and its age renders it no less consequential. A more thoughtful view might suggest that enonomic forces, not the "falling apart" (your term) of technology drives the adoption of new techniques vis-a-vis technology. I doubt that the "old-skewl" airport has much of a vested interest in punchcards for their own sake. Rather, the magnetic strip/punchcard approach best meets the current requirements of the airline busiess. A business, which, I might add, is hyper-competitive. I doubt that a conspiracy of "old-skewl"ers lurks behind the ticket counter. They would be non-competitive and quickly forced out of business.

      All of which leads into my final point, your most vile line of reasoning, shared by those who prefer pulse dialing to touch-tone and typewriters to word processors. What rubbish! Do you expect that those 286's and Datsuns, deployed in the Western economies, would aid an enterprise that must compete and produce in the marketplace? I should think not. At what point do you draw your arbitrary line in the sand - why the 286? Why not the Z80, or better yet the abacus? A sneering, pile of blather, your post. It makes my heart ache for your poor keyboard, whose keys are that many presses closer to the end of their design life for no good reason at all. Doubtless though, you shall at that point send your partially-functional keyboard to Africa, where it shall be used to great gain by one of the many world class businesses to be found on the plains of the mighty Serengheti.

      You miss the point of the discussion in your rush to be dismissive and rude to the rest of this community. Myopic indeed. -Marbury

  3. Cards? by saintlupus · · Score: 4, Insightful

    slashdotters not yet in their dotage may have never seen these 80 column Hollerith field cards

    Hell, seems like most Slashdotters don't remember the heady days of the 486 any more, let alone punch cards.

    "You mean computers used to have just a command line? Not even Windows 95?"

    --saint
    (I know, I know, troll. Fuck off.)

  4. Seen them!? I punched 'em - still have a box ... by gnetwerker · · Score: 5, Insightful
    I don't mean to be an old fart of the "I walked ten miles to school uphill in the snow" variety, but it might benefit /.ers to remember that they didn't invent computers, software, or much of the technology they gleefully use and (?) misuse.

    Hollerith cards are ~80 yrs old, the stored program computer is > 50 yrs old, the Internet is > 30 years old, the PC is > 25 years old, and all the important user-interface functions we now use (windows, icons, mouse, pointer) were demonstrated in 1968 by Doug Englebart (http://www.bootstrap.org/).

    I used to hate the comment that "I don't know what progamming language I'll be writing in 20 years, but I know it will be called FORTRAN". Now I see the (only slightly inprecise) wisdom in it. You would probably be bored by my stories about entering PDP-11 code on the console switches in octal, but there is a lesson in there somewhere.

    The message is: real change takes a long time -- one or two human generations. Overnight sensations and revolutions are usually many years in the making. Don't respect yer elders, but at least know what we did wrong. Andy Warhol said: "They say time changes things, but actually you have to change them yourself".

    End of Sermon

    mcg

  5. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  6. Re:why is this story posted so late? by s390 · · Score: 4, Insightful

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

    Wrong, you're only exposing your own stupid ignorance of serious mission-critical systems, cognitive ergonomics, and how industrial strength computing actually works.

    Although most physical punch cards were replaced by magnetic media about twenty years ago, give or take a few, "card-image" control and program files still run 80% of the large systems in existence - government, banking, insurance, credit-cards, drugs, consumer products, transportation, heavy manufacturing, distribution, retail, etc. The 80-column paradigm is alive and well, and it's not going to go away any time soon. It's merely been extended, but we still think in terms of "lines" of source code, don't we?

    Most source-code is still written in a 72-column or 80-column format. Where do think that came from, eh? The ergonomics of composing and reading code are still as valid now as they were then, when the punch card format was defined. Damned puppies! No respect for the technology that runs your world. Too 37337 to learn anything. Bah!

  7. Re:Non-Volatile Memory by Tony-A · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's very easy to erase a paper tape.
    Just hold down rubout. All holes punched.
    Ever wonder why hex FF never gets a printable character?