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IBM 026 Keypunch

C

Conmega

Experienced Member
Joined
May 15, 2013
Messages
274
Location
Poughkeepsie, NY
Well I have just purchased what is now the oldest and one of the coolest pieces in my collection.
I can't believe I won the auction for it on eBay let alone for $9!!
Here is the auction for the only photos of it as of now since I haven't gotten it yet.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/IBM-26-Keyp...qC4AyA%2BKc0iI1SvJi2E%3D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc
I'm sorry if I come off as if I may be bragging but I am honestly just so excited to have a keypunch, I thought I'd never own such a piece of history!

Now its not in the best condition and will need a lot of work, but I am prepared to preform said work and am excited to restore it!
I have access to a small machine shop and a 3D printer so I can reproduce some parts myself.
The only major missing piece I notice missing is the weight that sits in the card pickup.
Machining that is obviously possible but will be difficult and look very out of place being freshly machined.

I was wondering what tips and tricks others may have for restoring a keypunch.
I was also wondering if anyone knows of any PDFs online of the manual/repair manual for this keypunch!
I am not able to find one personally in my somewhat brief Google searching.
Any input is appreciated!
Thanks!

Also don't know if this is of any relevance but being 17 I've never even seen an 026 before let alone used or worked on one!
But I already know this project is not for the faint of heart and think I am ready for such a project :)
 
Thanks Dave, it is super useful!
Usually bit-savers documents show up in Google searches, but I didn't see them while searching, probably because of the various abbreviations in the PDF name.
I always forget to check there directly for some reason, I really have to hammer it into my head to always check there first...
Sorry! :oops:
 
No problems. Those names are really convoluted, especially the second of which does not contain "026". I only opened it after reading the first and realizing that the 026 was really a printing 024. Also many manuals on BitSavers have not been OCR'd so they don't show up on Google searches. I also knew there was a separate section for punched card equipment as I have an IBM Model 011 "hand punch" and was recently looking for manuals...
 
Dave: Yea they are quite terrible, but what are you going to do. At-least they have them!

m_tompson: I've seen your page before of the 010 punch that's awesome! I'm sure its nicer to use on the fly and easier to repair than a whole 026 heh. But once I get this thing going again I think I will try and make it available for people to try out, maybe next years VCF E or something especially if I at some point along the way find a way to get punch cards cheap... Say with a group buy from a paper mill or something willing to do a pallet full. I don't want to keep this machine private I'd much rather allow it to be used and let people experience it either again or for the first time :)
 
Punched cards are not going to be cheap. I have a quote from a local supplier for £49.00 (so about $80) + Tax per 1000. Still that's cheaper than used which were about £65 for 500.....
 
Hm.
That's is pricey but not terrible if you can order in 1000s not say by the pallet, I wonder how cheap you can find it in the states with tons of paper mills to price out... But you'll likely have to buy in pallets from a paper mill, guess that's what group buys are for.
 
Conmega said:
Dave: Yea they are quite terrible, but what are you going to do. At-least they have them!

m_tompson: I've seen your page before of the 010 punch that's awesome! I'm sure its nicer to use on the fly and easier to repair than a whole 026 heh. But once I get this thing going again I think I will try and make it available for people to try out, maybe next years VCF E or something especially if I at some point along the way find a way to get punch cards cheap... Say with a group buy from a paper mill or something willing to do a pallet full. I don't want to keep this machine private I'd much rather allow it to be used and let people experience it either again or for the first time :)
Click to expand...

I am very interested in hearing the repair story for your 026 punch. We have one as well. But we have never tried to start it. As far as I remember it there might be a Selenuium rectifier in it which make me a bit reluctant to turn it on. And then there are valves and relays involved. I have very little experience with valves.

BTW. For how long time were the 026 produced? Did all have relays and valves in them?
 
MattisLind said:
I am very interested in hearing the repair story for your 026 punch. We have one as well. But we have never tried to start it. As far as I remember it there might be a Selenuium rectifier in it which make me a bit reluctant to turn it on. And then there are valves and relays involved. I have very little experience with valves.

BTW. For how long time were the 026 produced? Did all have relays and valves in them?
Click to expand...

Wow your 026 looks beautiful! The 026's were produced from 1949 to probably the mid 60s when they were superseded by the 029 keypunch. I'm pretty sure they all used the same power supply (the metal box with tubes mounted and the selenium rectifiers along with some other bits which you can see in the repair manual clearly) and the cage of relays. But every keypunch I've seen has always been different in the back assumingly because they were built by hand. The power-supply uses 25L6 vacuum tubes which seem fairly common, you appear to be missing one so I'd not recommend powering yours up as is... So yes they all should have been produced with relays and valves, but you can never be sure with how they were made. But yours especially should have relays and valves due to my thinking that yours is a VERY early model as my describing later.

I am personally not familiar with selenium rectifiers other than they were used for diodes in old power-supplies and they give off dangerous fumes when they fail. I do know however that mine powers up because the seller powered it up before posting it... Although I will be doing a look over before powering it up again. Mine appears to have had a lot of work done to it though because mine has mixed looking selenium rectifiers in different stacks, also because of its condition I have a feeling mine has seen a LOT of action.

Yours however looks very clean and almost completely stock your power-supply actually looks almost exactly like the one in the repair manual especially in respect to the selenium rectifiers. So I would want to be careful with those heh... Your keypunch looks quite different from all the ones I've seen though, like the power switch is different, the cables aren't wrapped in a fabric material, you have all your relays labeled by hand instead of stamped, you have a different cover over the printing and punching mechanism, the reading station is painted instead of polished, and your keyboard has an extra switch at the top and the plate covering that area looks different... I want to say you have a VERY early version of the 026 likely a first generation of some type. The manuals available on bit-savers (linked in a previous post by Dave) show an image of one that looks like mine and most of the others online, and its a revision from 1964. But photos on this site (http://www.columbia.edu/cu/computinghistory/026.html) show photos like yours, likely these were pulled from older manuals dating back before new revisions of the manual with the updated photos were put in.

Although I'm not exactly the one to say, I am only 17 and these machines predate me as far as 48 years! This is just from the research I was able to do! Maybe someone else can chime in and confirm.

Once I get mine and start repairing it I will be making logs here and probably have a go at making videos on Youtube so its easier to follow along for people trying to restore their own.
In the mean time you can watch this guys video series of restoring an 029 Keypunch which shows some problems these machines get over the years and some tips for restoring them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XpR4cwCado
Also here is a wiring diagram for the 024 and 026 Keypunches: http://ibm-1401.info/IBM-026-Wiring-228005P.html

But I'd think you may be-able to throw a tube in the empty socket and power it up and see what you get after testing those selenium rectifiers and capacitors if you can.
It does seem the first step to trouble shooting these guys is to plug em in and power them on.

Good luck with yours!
 
You can not get the proper card stock for punch cards anymore. It is a specialty paper that is very difficult to make. During the last years at Cardamation, the owner tried to find a substitute stock when the good stuff ran out, and the best he could find just does not work well at all.

--
Will
 
Ah, well I already emailed the Living Computer Museum.
I'll see what they say, but that's not good news.
Thanks for the information anyway though.
 
Conmega said:
Also here is a wiring diagram for the 024 and 026 Keypunches: http://ibm-1401.info/IBM-026-Wiring-228005P.html

But I'd think you may be-able to throw a tube in the empty socket and power it up and see what you get after testing those selenium rectifiers and capacitors if you can.
It does seem the first step to trouble shooting these guys is to plug em in and power them on.

Good luck with yours!
Click to expand...

I had a quick look at the wiring diagrams and also browsed through the maintenance manual. It looks to me that the wiring diagram only lists 9 valves, right? The maintenance manual is quite extensive on all the mechanical details. I guess that get this to run is for me a very long term project.

I look forward to follow your journey to get it working!

The history behind this particular machine was that it was used by a small accounting company in Saltsjöbaden southwest of Stockholm. We got in contact with them in the eighties since they wanted to dispose of a Univac 9300 machine. But this was the only piece that we were able to get. The rest was unfortunately scrapped.
 
MattisLind said:
I had a quick look at the wiring diagrams and also browsed through the maintenance manual. It looks to me that the wiring diagram only lists 9 valves, right? The maintenance manual is quite extensive on all the mechanical details. I guess that get this to run is for me a very long term project.

I look forward to follow your journey to get it working!

The history behind this particular machine was that it was used by a small accounting company in Saltsjöbaden southwest of Stockholm. We got in contact with them in the eighties since they wanted to dispose of a Univac 9300 machine. But this was the only piece that we were able to get. The rest was unfortunately scrapped.
Click to expand...

Huh yea that's odd. I see that there only appears to be 9 valves and the one missing is number 6... Your missing number 9 though so if 6 was unused why is yours present, mine present, and just about every other photo I've seen of the machine present...
I have a feeling something isn't right here... I would keep 6 populated if I were you and put a tube into 9. I may have a shot on figuring out where tube number 6 goes into these schematics and updating them I suppose when I get the chance. You could also see about removing the panel with the tubes and see if its actually hooked up for sanity purposes :)

Thanks, I hope that I can make it an informative journey for others like you who need to repair their keypunches as-well.

That's sad, but hey at-least you got what appears to an an almost perfect example of an 026 keypunch!
Mine is going to need a bit more work heh, probably why its a good subject for repair videos, I'll have a chance to go over almost everything.
 
So I picked up the 026 Saturday and ended up getting a WHOLE ton of other items from the guy, including a 33 ASR Teletype for 40 bucks! :eek:nfire: (I seriously though I'd never own one with my budget...)
The teletype is in a similar state of disrepair though so I may need to make another thread just for it... Anyway!

I got to tearing into the keypunch tonight and wired up another power-cord since its original was starting to crack, powered it up and the motor runs, so its showing signs of life.
Then I started to tear into the keyboard because I'm missing a Multi Punch, Feed and A key caps and the Feed key's shaft. The Feed key will sort-of be needed to do the rest of the diagnostics and repairs, and the keyboard was very sticky and the internal key holding plate was rusted.
So into the keyboard I dived! It wasn't difficult to get to what I needed, I was fumbling a bit not knowing how it was supposed to come apart but now that I know I can give an outline in the videos I make to help anyone else who may need to take apart theirs as-well if needed.
I will likely for now move a letter key to the Feed key's position, clean up the rust and other dirt before throwing it back together for further testing.
I will eventually 3D print new key caps and machine a new shaft, but as of now my 3D printer is in storage so I will put that off to a later date, if anyone possibly has these parts and would be willing to part with them for a fair price that could work too.

So I will make a video of the keyboard tear-down cleaning and repair soon, throw it back together with the keys in place I need to test then continue on with the repairs.

Also I didn't trace out tube 6 to find out why its there yet because getting to it will be a real pain, but I know it glows so obviously some of it is wired up.
 
I'm a bit curious--it seems that 026 keypunches are more common out in the wild than 029s, yet there must have been more 029s produced/ Anyone know why? I remember re-badged 026s with the MAI brand--apparently, surplused by IBM.
 
I noticed this as-well, I feel like it has to do with how long the machines were produced, and by the time the 029 was made newer technology for storage was coming around at lower prices, and the 029 was only needed for the newest systems, people using the older systems that didn't require the extended character set just continued to use their already in place 026s and bought more of them, or refurbished units when they needed more instead of 029s. My unit has IBM repair service logs into the 70s showing the need for them kept up even after they introduced the 029, enough so to keep IBM servicing them well after. Especially considering if they didn't need the extended character set the 026 was probably a way cheaper option, especially used and they function a little bit differently which could affect the productivity of someone who was proficient with the 026 in the first place.

This is just a guess obviously, but I'd also be interesting in seeing if anyone else has a good idea as to why this is as-well!
 
I've used 029s with other character sets; IBM pretty much made them for all sorts of sets. You'd think that when the 029s entered the market in the 60s, just as more computers were becoming available, they'd be the dominant model.

It could also be that most of the 029s were leased and scrapped, not surplused by IBM. At any rate, it's somewhat of a mystery. Come to think of it, I've never seen a 5496 for sale...
 
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