Path: csiph.com!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!individual.net!not-for-mail From: "Carlos E. R." Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.misc,comp.unix.shell Subject: Re: [OT] Punch card times (was Re: Taking Speedy too seriously) Date: Sun, 1 Nov 2026 12:19:18 +0100 Lines: 43 Message-ID: References: <18dee4b6cab427fa$865$2574533$802601b3@news.usenetexpress.com> <11bg381$1bjd2$1@dont-email.me> <11bhv61$1bjd2$2@dont-email.me> <11bi77v$20c1p$1@news.xmission.com> <11binqk$1bjd2$3@dont-email.me> <11bmnvg$36mvk$1@dont-email.me> <11bp7nd$139t9$2@dont-email.me> <1omdnboFafC6TX33nZ2dnZfqn_GdnZ2d@giganews.com> <11brekh$139ta$4@dont-email.me> <11c529k$nak9$1@dont-email.me> <11c5ij7$nak9$2@dont-email.me> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: individual.net S5FwR/nU6ltxWXmnySHlPQvbgWnrDpsnby+kV1PYYtIdmOxGyW Cancel-Lock: sha1:/xm5lJZ6YxneA/24cQmav7HugAc= sha256:eRmz8F+h67Zw177ZfHM0vuSpxDjT3S54++MnH1bylbo= User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird Content-Language: en-GB In-Reply-To: <11c5ij7$nak9$2@dont-email.me> Xref: csiph.com comp.os.linux.misc:94884 comp.unix.shell:27090 On 2026-10-31 21:20, Janis Papanagnou wrote: > On 2026-10-31 20:08, Carlos E. R. wrote: >> >> I don't remember if my friend punched his own code, or had it punched. >> Would depend on how many punch machines they had for lowly students. > > We had a "row" of such machines available. Don't recall to have > ever waited for a free place (or the waiting time was negligible). > >> >> I remember his saying that he had to submit his stack of cards to a >> clerk, then given a paper slip to collect the results another day. > > The way it was done in our place was technically similar but did > not require that much time. > > The batch cards reader was in an accessible are, you could just > put the cards either directly in the reader device or in a queue > on a nearby desk where an operator did that job then. The reader > was constantly fed with cards by the operators since the queue > was also regularly filled by all the students; hardly more delay > than, maybe, 15 minutes. The printouts were quickly created with > the batch processing by super-fast chain printers, so were also > available in short term. Some delay was due to the fanfold paper > needed to be physically separated (by the jobs or user IDs) to be > associated to the different users. The output landed sorted in a > special shelf where we could fetch them. The whole batch process, > from the punch cards delivery to getting the printout results in > (typically less than) an hour. > > A peculiarity of the physical separation of the printouts was the > application of a nice trick; the printing logic for the front page > of the job printed some text (X-es?) across the paper-perforation > so that the individual jobs could quickly be detected visually if > you looked at the paper stack from the side. Ah! This part I knew nothing about, but makes sense. -- Cheers, Carlos E.R. ES🇪🇸, EU🇪🇺.