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Punch card operator

Vivienne14

Vivienne14

Kentish Brummie Moderator
Staff member
In the 1950s/60s punch cards were used for entering a program and/or data into a mainframe computer. The information was typed on a key punch machine, which punched rectangular holes in the card and (usually) printed the information along the top of the card so a human could read what the holes represented.

A punch card operator would punch the holes by hand or with a machine and then use a tabulating machine to compile data from the cards to produce reports, process invoices and checks, manage class registrations, monitor budgets, etc
 

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Fun fact. The largest set of punched cards (Hollerith) used in a program was 62,500, and that represented about 5 Megabytes in todays money.
A big problem was dropping a stack, (don’t ask). This was solved by including an index on the cards. Obvious really. A college trick was swapping two cards, just for fun of course.
In those days, the card stack was given to ’computer operators’, and the resulting result printout handed back sometime later.
Luckily for me they were going out of use when I started my journey.
Andrew.
 
Hi,

The IBM system used 80 column cards which were prepared on a punch machine.
the were then passed to a second operator using a 'verifier' machine. The operator
would put the punched card into the verifier, and key the same information again
and would be alerted if the data didn't tally. Some machines were Punch/Verifiers,
so you could perform both functions on the same machine.

Still in use at Metro Cammell in the 1970s. In fact I got my job at the Met through
NOT knowing what they were for! I went for a job working at SOS Bureau, and I had
to fill out a questionnaire which included 'What is a verifier?' I didnt know, and the
interviewer said that although everything else was ok they had to have 100% for
the job at the Bureau. However they would like to send me for a job on their books
which they felt would suit me. It did, and I had 12 happy years at the Met.

Sometimes it's not what you know, but what you don't know!

Kind regards
Dave
 
Dave89 said:
Hi,

The IBM system used 80 column cards which were prepared on a punch machine.
the were then passed to a second operator using a 'verifier' machine. The operator
would put the punched card into the verifier, and key the same information again
and would be alerted if the data didn't tally. Some machines were Punch/Verifiers,
so you could perform both functions on the same machine.

Still in use at Metro Cammell in the 1970s. In fact I got my job at the Met through
NOT knowing what they were for! I went for a job working at SOS Bureau, and I had
to fill out a questionnaire which included 'What is a verifier?' I didnt know, and the
interviewer said that although everything else was ok they had to have 100% for
the job at the Bureau. However they would like to send me for a job on their books
which they felt would suit me. It did, and I had 12 happy years at the Met.

Sometimes it's not what you know, but what you don't know!

Kind regards
Dave
Click to expand...
Dave, where I worked (as did many others) in the US we still had those IBM cards until I think about 1973/74. I did not work on them but needed their output or results.
 
Not only 80 column, but 21, and 40 column, and maybe more. (36? 65?) The smaller cards were used in Powers-Samas equipment and the 80 column as previously mentioned in IBM and Hollerith kit. 21 column was used by Co-op Societies to keep tally of the “divi”, the first 4 or 5 columns being the Check no, then a transaction reference of some sort, then the £.s.d. value of the sale. The cards were punched by operators from the daily sales records of each shop, accuracy being achieved by two punchings from the same information into the same card, but done by two different operators. Each operation punched half a hole, and if a mistake occurred the card would fail its trip through the automatic verifier and be rejected, because the sensors would not read half a hole, but would read two half holes in the same location which made up a full hole, if you see what I mean.

The cards were then sorted into check no. or transaction or shop reference by a sorting machine, and a tabulator would print out the information and strike sub, grand and final totals according to its method of being set up by the operators.

80 column systems with electronic calculating machines that read the data, carried out mathematical actions and punched the results into the same cards allowed things like payroll build up to gross and then gross to net pay, invoicing and cost sheets to be handled. For instance, a card might have employee’s clock no, and hours worked and rate appropriate and punch the product into the card after the calculation.


Hollerith Senior Rolling Total Tabulator C.R.S. Mechanical Service Manual - Manual - Computing History

The Tabulator is a combination listing, adding, subtracting and printing machine.The Tabulator is a combination listing, adding, subtracting and printing machine. The Senior Rolling Total Tabulator...
www.computinghistory.org.uk
 
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Like any tool in human hands, this system - and the increased efficiency and effectiveness it provided - could be put to good or evil use.

I’m sure I remember reading somewhere that this (American) technology made the Holocaust possible and enabled the Nazis to organise the mass deportations of millions of people.

Chris
 
During the 1930s and 1940s, Hollerith machines were the best data processing devices available. The Nazi regime employed thousands of people in 1933 to 1939 to record national census data onto Hollerith punch cards. The SS used the Hollerith machines during the war to monitor the large numbers of prisoners shipped in and out of concentration camps. The machines were manufactured by DEHOMAG-Deutsche Hollerith Maschinen Gesellschaft or German Hollerith Machine Company, a subsidiary of IBM since 1922.
Source: https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/hollerith-machine

Nothing more to add.

Andrew.
 
Although the Hollerith machines were used internationally the ones in U.K. seemed to have been built in Letchworth Herts. The Powers-Samas works was in Croydon I think. British Tabulating Machine Co (I.e. Hollerith), and Powers merged (early 60s?) to form ICT, which then formed ICL upon merging with the other British computer manufacturer, an offshoot of GEC, which had also been through two or three iterations. I don’t think anything is left of what was once a largish company. In U.K. at least, IBM was the main competitor.
 
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