Re: is this a hint or what?

I remember the day in 1975 that I came back from lunch and I spilled a 
Coke into the card reader on a System/3 Model 15B. The IBM CE showed up 
within about an hour. He looked at me and said "Kid, have you got a 
t-shirt under that nice white shirt?" When I said yes, he told me to take 
off my tie and dress shirt and prepare to get a little dirty. He then 
handed me some cleaning fluid and a toothbrush, and told me to get started 
on the cleanup process. It was about 8 that night when we were able to get 
the thing back in business.


Paul Nelson
Arbor Solutions, Inc.
708-670-6978  Cell
pnelson@xxxxxxxxxx





PaulMmn <PaulMmn@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent by: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
09/08/2004 08:44 PM
Please respond to Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
 
        To:     JOberholtzer@xxxxxxxxxxxx
        cc:     midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx
        Subject:        Re: is this a hint or what?


Jim--

Ah, yes.  Punch cards.

I remember the fun we used to have-- As a program developed, a 
program deck would change-- as cards were removed and replaced, 
sections re-arranged, etc.  From time to time we'd duplicate the 
deck, putting a fresh number sequence the proper place.  Then we'd 
draw diagonal lines on the card deck, and label it with the program 
name, date of change, etc.  This state of excellence usually lasted 
about a week, until we had to make changes.

After a while the programmer would be about ready to repunch the 
deck.  So I'd sneakily duplicate the deck before the programmer could 
request a fresh copy.  And, with the old deck in hand, I'd hold the 
whole thing vertical between my two hands (all 18" of it), and ask, 
"This the deck you want duplicated?    OOPS!!!"  and spew the deck 
across the floor.  You could hear the programmer scream for miles! 
(:

  I remember fondly the day we migrated from 96 column cards to 3742 
diskettes.  Gone forever were the days of dropping the deck of cards 
that was the invoicing program.  "Was" being the operative word if 
you didn't have the deck recently number sequenced, or a current 
printout to use to re-sequence the cards.  Of course, the technician 
who installed the machines told us we'd think they were slow in about 
a week.  He was right, of course.

--Paul E Musselman
PaulMmn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


>Jim wrote (in part):

>I want my punch cards back.  At least I could touch them, and they made
>such a great pile when you dropped them.  ...  ;-)  oops, I'm not 
supposed
>to admit I actually used cards at one time...   BTW, it seems to me we 
had
>many of the same comments regarding the on line editor vs. cards back 
then.
>
>Jim
--
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