Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!ogicse!ucsd!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!sdd.hp.com!hplabs!hpcc01!aspen!jacka
From: jacka@aspen.IAG.HP.COM (Jack C. Armstrong)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: Punched Card Annecdote (was: C obfuscator)
Message-ID: <1600003@aspen.IAG.HP.COM>
Date: 1 Jun 90 18:44:12 GMT
References: <61208@sgi.sgi.com>
Organization: Information Architecture Group, HP
Lines: 21

What do you use punched cards for?  Sigh... Oh, the callous barbs of youth!

At one point (in the '50s), IBM made a beast called a CPC (Card Programmed
Calculator).  Instead of programming steps with a plugboard panel (don't
get me started!), instructions were punched into cards, interspersed with
data.  Loops were 'programmed' by duplicating the cards containing the
steps of the loop!

I actually saw one of these things, I think at the Lucky Lager Brewery in
San Francisco, in the early '60s.  (Or maybe at the Planter's Peanut factory
down the street... don't remember).  It was due to be removed soon, so I
spent a few hours writing a short working program, just to be able to say
I'd done it.

Can't say I miss punched cards, but they *were* handy to jot thinks on and
carry around in a shirt pocket.  Took my wife years to learn how to use
something else for a grocery list!

Jack C. Armstong --- (I'm not really that old, I was born with total recall.)

[BTW:  I'll bet babies these days don't teethe on write rings either!]