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Our guys get a kick when I ask them to 'Hang a tape' for me on our
Iseries. I started on a IBM RAMAC computer in 1962 using vacuum tubes
in the Air Force along with the old PCAM (punched card accounting
machine) machines.

I worked my through college working nights working on a IBM 1401, later
360/30.

As a veteran of hundreds of hours on card sorting machines I haven't
heard the '9 edge first....' in many a year.

Still going strong writing RPG programs.

-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Jim Oberholtzer
Sent: Friday, April 15, 2011 8:21 AM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: Re: Decided to hang it up

Not quite. My first job was wiring sorters at BlueCross BlueShield in
Milwaukee. Still have the tools.

My first production COBOL program was on cards. After switching to the
system side of things we ran TSO, VTAM, IMS, and several other utilities

all from cards. We did not have no stinking terminals at that time.
Six months later, yep they started showing up but we did not change over

the card decks to on line JCL for at least a year. I even built the NCP

in cards to start with.

Jim Oberholtzer
Chief Technical Architect
Agile Technology Architects


On 4/14/2011 10:21 PM, Thomas Garvey wrote:
I thought I was the only geezer on here with history that far back. I
started out on card sorters, interpreters, etc. on the midnight shift
with
an IBM System/360. We had to work our way UP to even get near that
thing.
We got so we could read an 80 column card from the punches (that would
be
reading hex for you young folks). When I left the 360/370 world we
were
managing huge machines that took up floors of space, were water
cooled, and
had people who did nothing but load and unload tapes, and others who
did
nothing but decollate and burst paper. Then jumped to the IBM System
3.
Different cards and keypunches (on to diskettes) and then moved
continually
up through System/38, AS/400, etc. A few weeks ago I installed a new
Power
720 and today created a new guest partition for development.

I don't let myself think about retiring. Still writing new code in
RPGLE,
PHP, HTML, JavaScript, Visual Basic, etc. My laptop has orders of
magnitude
of capability compared to what used to be housed in those big iron
machines
with libraries of tapes.

-----Original Message-----
From:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Midrange
Information
Sent: Thursday, April 14, 2011 7:55 PM
To: 'Midrange Systems Technical Discussion'
Subject: RE: Decided to hang it up

In the late 60s I worked for a power company and we sent out bills
(special
designed 80 col card) and asked the customer to enter the meter
reading on
the card and make any changes needed to the address on the card. One
card
was received back in a mess and on the cad was written: I have bent,
folded,
stapled and mutilated this dam card, now change my F..... address

I wonder if that is still pasted on the computer room bulletin board

-----Original Message-----
From:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of James Lampert
Sent: Thursday, April 14, 2011 7:37 PM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: Re: Decided to hang it up

jmmckee wrote:
Here is a picture of one. This happens to be a JCL card:


https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/File:Punch-card-5081.jp
g
And from that, you can presumably figure out what "face down,
nine-edge
first" means. Along with "Do not fold, bend, spindle, or mutilate."

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