Comment by geophile | Hacker News Reader

Comment by geophile | Hacker News Reader

I was an undergrad 1974-1977, taking computer science courses at McGill, before there was a CS major. Here was my workflow:

1. Write program longhand, on fanfold paper (more on this below).

2. Type program on cards. Those IBM 029 keypunches were the loudest, stiffest, most satisfying keyboards ever. The Model M is silent and squishy, by comparison.

3. Take cards over to reader. Deck is read, often without problems.

4. Go over to the lineprinter, and wait, with everyone else, for your output, printed on fanfold paper. This stuff flew out at a few feet per second.

5. Collect your output, debug.

6. Implement your fixes by deleting or replacing affected cards, and typing new ones, making sure everything goes in its right place.

7. Repeat from step 3.

Often the wait for your output was long and excruciating.

Fanfold paper was FANTASTIC scrap paper. I had so much of it, and used it for everything.

Every card reader/lineprinter station had an operator to deal with the inevitable jams and other problems. They would often get approached for programming help. One particularly cruel joke: "Oh, that's a color code error. You typed your program on the wrong color cards."

> Often the wait for your output was long and excruciating.

I solved that problem by getting a 10 hour per week job at a remote batch submittal station. It was in a quiet corner of campus, so I mostly had a card reader and line printer to myself :)

Oh... My favorite punch card trick that doesn't work well on "glass teletypes":

  debug = 0; /*/ ;1 = gubed
  */

I think I understand how your punch card trick worked for the most part, but how'd the last line work?

He would flip the card left to right. debug = 1

I under stand the flipping. But the last line (as written) wouldn't be read correctly, so the commenting out of `;0 = gubed` would never close.

I think another commenter figured it out, and the last line would need to be on a separate card.

*/ marks the end of comment block

The last line would be on a separate card, so it does not need to be reversible.

I wonder if you could write this on one card like

  /**/ debug = 1; /*/ ;0 = gubed /**/

That's what was tripping me up. I thought the last line was on the same card, so the close of the comment wouldn't be read correctly.

> Every card reader/lineprinter station had an operator to deal with the inevitable jams and other problems

on my campus in the late 90s there was an old lab with unix stations in it ( can't remember what they were) that nobody went to. I always ended up in that lab because it was quiet and the workstations worked just fine for me. They had these extremely high speed printers in there that were very large and under glass. I was playing around and did something.. i can't remember what maybe sent a binary to the printers or something... they took off and went crazy and caused lots of headaches.

I had the nickname "dammitchad" in some of the labs because "dammit chad, quit screwing stuff up" was a pretty common phrase. I was one of the "other problems" you mention haha.

About those printers...

Most people will tell you ISO 216 and DIN 476 are the same. this is not so

The DIN 476 standard has very slightly tighter tolerances than the ISO 216 and in the mid 90s I had the good fortune to meet one of those fancy new printers, under glass, yes, which no longer used continuous form paper but rather it used ISO 216 A4 pages. Or that's what you thought. It used DIN 476. Hundreds and hundreds per minute. The input and output trays were the height of an adult person.

And the moment someone bought A4 which was not DIN 476 compliant things went south. Very, very south. I believe the difference is half a millimetre (!). That printer was not mercifully designed.

I still have fond memories of working on the 029 keypunch machines, the keys made such a satisfying sound. I also remember the rooms where thousands of chads from punching the cards collected and had a certain smell and the bright overhead lighting, the ample air conditioning, the raised floors, the background noise of the machines, the whirling tape drives; it was an experience I'll never forget.

Fanfold paper was the best- we got a box of it (1500 pages or more) from the thrift store when the kids were little and they went nuts for years drawing super long trucks and trains and giraffes.

fanfold was my development platform. I would design and code everything on it, out on some hiking trail under a tree while everyone else was typing away in some office.

would have been more productive with an OCR feature.

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