Texas Company's Antique Computers Are For Production, Not Display

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Texas Company's Antique Computers Are For Production, Not Display

Posted by timothy on Thursday April 25, 2013 @05:32AM from the commute-by-horseback-numb-with-ether dept.

concealment writes "Sparkler Filters up north in Conroe [Texas] still uses an IBM 402 in conjunction with a Model 129 key punch – with the punch cards and all – to do company accounting work and inventory. The company makes industrial filters for chemical plants and grease traps. Lutricia Wood is the head accountant at Sparkler and the data processing manager. She went to business school over 40 years ago in Houston, and started at Sparkler in 1973. Back then punch cards were still somewhat state of the art." See kottke.org for an eye-popping view of one of the "programs" — imagine debugging that.

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Re:Debugging that... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-25 05:42 · Score: 4, Funny

It's not old, it's hacker resistant :D
Re:Debugging that... by Dancindan84 · 2013-04-25 05:44 · Score: 4, Funny

Not if you're hacking with a box cutter.

--
"Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much." - Oscar Wilde
I still use punch cards ... by perpenso · 2013-04-25 05:50 · Score: 4, Funny

While in college there was still a working punch card machine on campus. Our intro to computer science professor made us write our first program using punch cards. He said we would get two things out of it. We would understand why some things are the way they are with respect to programming languages and command lines. And we would have book marks for life (the program was short but we had to buy a deck of blanks at the bookstore). I still use these cards for bookmarks.
Wow by geek · 2013-04-25 05:54 · Score: 4, Funny

And people bitch about XP users hanging onto an old and obsolete system.
So i wonder how this was discovered? by nimbius · 2013-04-25 06:06 · Score: 4, Funny

accounting intern:"damn, looks like the microwave is getting repaired. wanna go out for bbq?"
accounting director:"we dont have a microwave. you mean the accounting computer down the hall??"
BOFH:"so heres the dead man that just pushed a hot pocket into the 402 and took down payroll! let me get the punch cards kid, you're in for a fun night."

--
Good people go to bed earlier.
1. Re:So i wonder how this was discovered? by greyparrot · 2013-04-25 06:20 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  I found one (or two) of these once as part of a study. The old M-- H-- bank was going to replace some important system, and I was on the illustrious crew of analysts documenting all its interfaces. One of them was a deck of cards that was output at the end of the run. So very early one morning I followed it from the output room to the mail room, and then the wagon to an office, where the cards were placed on the desk of the person who ran that machine. She and her young assistant ran them through the machine, which duplicated them and added some columns, probably totals of some kind. Then they took the new deck and loaded it into another of the same sort of machine, programmed differently. It read the cards and printed a report. Then she put a rubber band around the report and cards, and it went back on the mail cart. I followed it down the hall and to another floor, where it arrived on someone's desk.
  And...
  He picked it up and threw it into the trash.
  When I wrote it up, nobody wanted to believe me.
2. Re:So i wonder how this was discovered? by rgbscan · 2013-04-25 06:35 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  It's funny how those things persist. Years ago, I took over a mainframe data processing department. Every month I would be sent a fan-fold report on that old school tractor fed paper that took up a whole copy paper box. It literally was a 50 pound report. I had no idea what it was for, nor did anyone else. It went straight into the shredder. Every month a new bundle would show up. I sent it straight to the shredder. Didn't even look at it. The box came interoffice mail with no return address and there wasn't any identifying information on the report for me to figure out where it came from or how to get it shut off. Not even a report identifier I could look for in the mainframe. I can't imagine how much time, paper, and impact printer ribbon went into it. I mean, how would you even look for anything on that report? Kept coming every month for the whole 4 years I managed that department. I hear it finally and mysteriously, stopped showing up a year or two ago. The new manager has no explanation for it's demise but it was a good thing. /Shrug
Re:It's not broken, so let's break it (SAP). by greyparrot · 2013-04-25 06:10 · Score: 3, Funny

Jah, SAP. World's slowest suicide method.
I find it difficult to believe in your sorrow. by Medievalist · 2013-04-25 06:19 · Score: 3, Funny

The 4 hour group was (sorry to say this, but it's a fact) Black girls.
http://xkcd.com/385/
Trust me on this, wiring skill isn't normally supposed to depend on possession of a pale pink penis. You're totally doing it wrong.
1. Re:I find it difficult to believe in your sorrow. by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-25 08:25 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  You should probably get that nose looked at.
nuclear war resistant by sxpert · 2013-04-25 06:52 · Score: 3, Funny

This company is probably the only one in the area that will still be operational in case of a nuclear war. that type of computing device is pretty much impervious to EMPs.
Re:I used to write programs in PL1/PLC on punch ca by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-25 07:03 · Score: 4, Funny

Thanks. That would have been real helpful 40 YEARS AGO!
Re:Debugging that... by idunham · 2013-04-25 13:33 · Score: 3, Funny

Hey, it's the original spaghetti code!