RE: Decided to hang it up

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."

--
JHHL
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