Re: (erielack) EL way freight operations

["Tim Stuy" <njmidland_@_verizon.net>]

You are not showing age with the IBM punch cards.  My incoming Freshman
class at Stevens were the last to use punch cards while learning Fortran IV
in 1980.  About 1988 or so I was at the Westinghouse TV picture tube factory
in Horseheads, NY where an IBM punchcard was being affixed to the back of
each tube.  In order to keep the card punching and card reading/sorting
machines going they had a guy that got newspapers from all over the country
to find auctions of other companies selling off their obsolete stuff.  I
never got back there but I would assume the cards must have been
discontinued shortly after my visit.

Tim

On Fri, Oct 3, 2008 at 12:12 PM, Chuck Yungkurth <raildata_@_comcast.net>wrote:

> As risk of diplaying my "geyserhood", I started working at IBM during the
> punched car era ( "BT"...before transistor).
>
> To mess around with punch card you would need a card punch. This was a
> bulky affair like a small desk, although I think I recall a small hand punch
> for doing a single card. It was pretty easy to read what was on the card by
> simply examining the holes punched.
>
> To use a card system you also would need a card sorter and a card printer.
> All these were big, electromechanical devices run by motors and controlled
> by relays.
>
> Might add that starting back in the 1920s the railroads were one of the
> largest customers for IBM card systems. The Lackawanna had almost a whole
> floor of the depot in Scranton full of clerks working at machine to punch
> data into cards.
>
> Chuck Yungkurth
> Boulder CO
>
>
>


	The Erie Lackawanna Mailing List
	http://EL-List.railfan.net/
	To Unsubscribe: http://Lists.Railfan.net/erielackunsub.html

------------------------------