Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!uunet!apex!chuckh
From: chuckh@apex.UUCP (Chuck Huffington)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: Punched Cards
Message-ID: <54@apex.UUCP>
Date: 6 Jun 90 17:14:36 GMT
References: <12546@netcom.UUCP> <220@taumet.COM> <12573@netcom.UUCP> <898@nlsun1.oracle.nl> <1990May29.132631.2253@pdn.paradyne.com> <1990May30.065025.25861@diku.dk> <1990Jun1.211352.4749@unhtel.uucp> <5157@stpstn.UUCP>
Reply-To: chuckh@apex.com (Chuck Huffington)
Distribution: comp
Organization: Apex Computer Co., Redmond  WA
Lines: 35

In article <5157@stpstn.UUCP> lerman@stpstn.UUCP (Ken Lerman) writes:
|In the "Good Old Days", Fortran was punched in columns 1-72 of the 80
|column card with 73-80 used for (an optional) sequence number.
|
|As I recall, the 7090 class machine had a 36 bit word and could thus
|contain 24 words of data (in binary mode) plus have an 8 character
|sequence number.
|
|Does anyone out there know if these two "facts" are related?
|
>Ken

Yes, they are related.  In the old IBM 709, which was the vacuum tube (valve)
version of the 7090 the system card reader read only columns 1-72.
Thus fortran (which was designed to run in this family of machines)
didn't use columns 73-80.

A card was read in 24 36 bit words.  As I recall the first word
got the left half of the 12 row, followed by the right half 12 row.
and so on down to the 24th word getting the right half of the 9 row.

I believe that the earlier machines (like the 704) used the same scheme
but I never used anything older than the 709 so I can't be sure.

As I recall a lot of cards also came in thru an off line card to tape
machine.  They read the whole card and wrote it in BCD on 7 track tapes.

The 709 I used had an interesting locally built kludge on it.
There was a UNIVAC 1004 accounting machine (board programmed, sort of like
an IBM 40X, but a lot fancier and faster).  It was connected to the
709 channel and looked to the system like a tape drive.  If you read a
record you got the next card.  If you wrote a record it printed a line.

				Chuck Huffington
				uunet!apex!chuckh