Wolfenshire posted at 1:57PM Tue, 24 November 2020 - #4404073

@redphantom Oh wow... punch cards. I was the Publications Officer way back in 84 and had to use those. First you had to fill out a form with the data you needed on a piece of paper (there could be hundreds of pieces of paper, and they had to be in order) Then you'd stand at this machine that made the punch cards (and those had to be in order). It could take hours and hours to punch out all the cards. Then you had to put them into a computer the size of a small house. If even one card was out of order, it wouldn't work and you had to find which card was out of order. I made a mistake once and instead of getting a pallet of books, I got a phone call asking where I wanted my attack helicopter delivered.

The first punch cards I used were ones with pre-cut slots which had to be pushed out with a toothpick. Then i came across a gadget that would punch cards for me; and finally found a machine that would punch the card as I typed (it belonged to the UK rocket site - Blue Streak I think it was). Then we had the phone and modem box ... and tape. That was back in the the days of Fortran 4 and then BASIC.