re IBM card puncher
re IBM card puncher
Is there a label on te machinne anywhere? It shorld be a Model 019 or 029 Key Punch. The 019 was a numeric only punch and the 029 was an alphanumeric punch. Then there was one or two more that had diffeent numbers such as 059 and maybe another. They were Verifyng and duplicating machines. The "Data Entry"process was interesting. One pereson transcribed the data from the customer's raw paper sheets to punched cards. A second operator put the punched cards into another machine called the Verifying Key Punch and essentially re-did the first persons work. As each card passed through the machine and the data was compared as entered by the Verifying operator against the data as entered by the first operaor. If the holes didn't compare the machine hallted and the Verifyer had to decide who was right and correct the error on a new card and swap the bad one out of the deck.
The keyboards were kind of interesting. All I could figure out was that IBM did not want to have to hire only people that could "touch-type" on a standard typewriter so the keypunch keyboards were totally different. They did not have a "shift" key. They did not have the ability to punch lower case letters. They could punch UC leterss, numbers and a standardized set of business oriented symbols. Thus, they had two keys labled "Letters" and "Figures" and the operators were trained to use this type of keyboard. Note that this limited set of Alpha and Numerics and Symbols" convention was carried over to the High Speed Line Printers of the day too. They usually had a maximum of 48 Characters and symbols that they could print. This would be 26 UC alphas, ten numerics and twelve symbols like @, $, +, -, =, and six more plus a blank for the "Space" function.
If you think about it a little you will realize whyI think that the machine you are about to acquire is almost surely worth a fair amount and getting more valuable all the time. The fact is I can hardly believe that so many of you don't know anything about those mchines because it seems such a short time ago that the "Key Punch " or "Data Entry" operator was a major career for so many women in this country, and the "Service Bureau" was more or less a standard business in any town bigger than 25,000 in the country. The Service Bureau wss where the cards were processed for every business or goverenmental agency or department that didn't want or couldn/t afford their own.
You will also get an idea why IBM did not equip any of their computers before the PC with floppy disks. (Yes, I know that IBM inventedthe floppy disk, butit was a "read-only" device, first used to let the Customer Engineer load hardware disgnostic rotines into the 360-20 in 1972or 73. It was Century Data Systems and Memorexthat first made "Read/Write floppy drives.) They sold billions of blank cards each year and they did not sell their equipment, they leased it. If the keypunches and the sorters, verifiers, colaters and everything else were replaced they would loose a ton of money per month.
ONE MORE THING: STEVE, I HAVE ONE OF THOSE MACHINES YOU DESCRIBE. IT IS ESSENTIALLY BRAND NEW, WITH SAMPLE CARDS AND EVERYHING ELSE, STILL IN IT'S CARRYING CASE AND WITH INSTRUCTION MANUAL.
Ray