> but probably less catastrophic than dropping a box of punched cards.
unless they were sequence numbered and you had a sorting machine[0] :-)
unless they were sequence numbered and you had a sorting machine[0] :-)
put them in a file.
sort the file.
send the file to a cardpunch.
recycle the original card deck
i don't remember how to do this on a CDC mainframe, but at one time in my life it would only have taken 15 minutes. of which 14 minutes would be waiting for my job to run.