Rare Apple I computer sells for $216,000 in London

[Huge]

I haven't seen a punch card in decades though.

I saw one yesterday. I'm using it as a bookmark.

 

[fritz]

A good slapping?

Probably nothing - no-one is interested in the Vic 20.
There is one on eBay for $55 - it's been there since July !!!!

 

[Ahem A Rivet's Shot]

<grin> Looks that way. He still hasn't really answered my question. So
I'll guess he wasn't the one to make the decisions and doesn't know
all the details of that particular site.

Trying to get back to an on-topic....

I remember the 33s causing field service to create new swear words.

Having seen the insides of a 33 I'm not surprised.

However, I don't remember keypunches doing that. I do remember one

There was more electronics and less mechanical wizardry in the card
punches I knew (029s).

33 which took about a month to fix (one of the ones I busted by
typing too fast).

That probably bollixed up the mechanical ASCII encoder/keyboard
mechanism, I would hate to try and fix that, I was always amazed that they
got it to work at all let alone in mass production.

If a keypunch broke badly enough to get IBM
in to fix it, it didn't take long to have it working again.

So, another question is: Speedybongzalas implied that keypunches
were difficult to fix. Were they really?

I doubt it from what I've seen of the innards of them, but I've
never tried it.

 

[Charlie Gibbs]

I think that was a common practice becuase of slow assemblies.

Yup. We had a large production program that I'd patch until the
whole thing fell apart - only then would I try to wheedle the 40
minutes of machine time that it took to re-assemble it.

I finally wrote my own assembler. Although it had a number of very
nice features that were missing from the stock assembler, its primary
goal (which I achieved) was to run twice as fast. It was a bit easier
to scrounge 20 minutes of machine time than 40.

 

[Charlie Gibbs]

Fly specs could cause bugs.

That one's a keeper, Barb.

 

[Charlie Gibbs]

The "covered wagon" helped settle the American west. Just because
the "covered wagon" was *not* a steam train or an airplane, that
is *no* reason that one should curse the "covered wagon".

Those computer cards are a big part of what got us where we are
today. It seems mighty ungrateful for anyone to curse or revile
them... If it's part of one's "right of passage" to throw the past
into the trash bin, one might consider these things.

s/right/rite/

On second thought, given the modern culture of entitlement,
perhaps you're right after all...

 

[Charlie Gibbs]

"Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it."
-- George Santayana

One of the things I've been thankful for having started when cards
were still in use is that I've never had any problem understanding
files, records or fields. When you could hold the "records" in your
hand and look at the "fields" on the card it became very clear.

And if there was too much data to fit on a single card, you suffered
the nightmare of needing multiple physical records to hold a single
logical record. Awareness of this has a good influence on data design.

I've used this to teach the concepts several times. Most recently,
I had to bring up some pictures of cards on the screen because the
student had never seen any. But when I did they got an instant
"Oh, yeah!" Of course, "do not bend, fold, spindle, or mutilate"
didn't mean anything to her, but that's the way it goes.

You could always explain it as a form of data corruption, right down
to the level of a spindle hole flipping a single bit.

 

[[email protected]]

Lessee...

Keyboard (once or maybe twice), proofread, and correct a few hundred
pages of listings: maybe two weeks' work, max.

Maybe you can type that fast, but I can't. And, I don't know
anybody who can. Several hundred pages of 1411 listings, mostly
full.

Develop an OCR program that's good enough to use for the purpose (but
still requires careful proofreading of its output): years, possibly
decades of work.

The program is already developed, and the output is pretty good, so
far. It's just that it is S L O W.

I would, with all due submission, suggest that one does not need a degree
in Engineering Management to figure out what to do in this situation.

No, I think not, as I don't have one, and I figured it out.

 

[Rod Speed]

jmfbahciv wrote

He still hasn't really answered my question.

There wasnt any question that wasnt just puerile silly stuff.

So I'll guess he wasn't the one to make the decisions
and doesn't know all the details of that particular site.

Guess again.

Trying to get back to an on-topic....

I remember the 33s causing field service to create new swear words.

And you clearly never did maintenance on them yourself.

However, I don't remember keypunches doing that. I do remember
one 33 which took about a month to fix (one of the ones I busted by
typing too fast). If a keypunch broke badly enough to get IBM
in to fix it, it didn't take long to have it working again.

Pity about the cost of them and the cost of that maintenance.

With a decent collection of punches, there was always one or two with a problem.

Not surprising given that they were entirely electromechanical devices, no electronics at all.

So, another question is: Speedybongzalas implied that keypunches were difficult to fix.

Pigs arse I ever did.

Were they really?

Never said they were, just quite expensive to maintain because they werent that reliable.

Much more expensive to maintain than what replaced them.

 

[Rod Speed]

jmfbahciv wrote

keithr wrote

Do you know how that practice began?

It didnt even happen. And I know because I worked there.

Was it a course all of them took which required
both media to be used for the course's problems?

Nope. There might have been one loon or two that went that route but I doubt even that.

 

[Frank Slootweg]

Do you know which one? How did you eliminate the lines?

No, I don't know which line printer, I only have the printouts.

I don't understand what you mean by "How did you eliminate the
lines?". Which lines? Or do you mean 'computer paper' (or whatever it
was called), which was two-colored, mostly white-with-green, are those
(green) lines the lines you mean?

FWIW, the policies were printed on - somewhat translucent - 'white'
paper.

[...]

 

[Anne & Lynn Wheeler]

Yup. We had a large production program that I'd patch until the
whole thing fell apart - only then would I try to wheedle the 40
minutes of machine time that it took to re-assemble it.

I finally wrote my own assembler. Although it had a number of very
nice features that were missing from the stock assembler, its primary
goal (which I achieved) was to run twice as fast. It was a bit easier
to scrounge 20 minutes of machine time than 40.

re:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#11 Rare Apple I computer sells for $216,000 in London

I had the machine time ... since I got 48hrs straight every weekend ...
it was that it was usually faster to patch it than re-assemble.

I had conditional assembly ... one that ran stand-alone ... with its own
device drivers, interrupt handlers, etc that assembled in approx. 30
mins ... and the one that ran under os/360 using open/close, read/write
and DCB macros that assembled in approx. an hour (on 360/30) ... the DCB
macros taking 5-6 mins elapsed time each ... it was possible to see it
in the front panel lights when it had hit a DCB macro.

the folklore was that the person doing opcode lookup assembler routine
had been told that it had to be done in 256 bytes (or some such) ... so
the lookup table was reloaded from disk on each statement. the assembler
got much faster when somebody improved opcode lookup (using the memory
to keep the table loaded).

 

[maus]

Probably nothing - no-one is interested in the Vic 20.
There is one on eBay for $55 - it's been there since July !!!!

some interest in the 64, a basic internet connection has been
operated off one. They are easily set up as controllers for
displays. (Amateur versions of traffic displays).

 

[Frank Slootweg]

OK. Some were pretty good at printing and others were awful. I was
curious.


How wide was the paper? Or was it TTY paper?

It was A4 format, i.e. about the US 8.5x11" format.

 

[Rod Speed]

jmfbahciv wrote

Rod Speed wrote

Keypunches were very reliable unless you abused them extremely.

Like I said, with a decent collection of punches, there was always one or two with a problem.

And the cost of having them on maintenance contract was substantial.

 

[Charles Richmond]

s/right/rite/

On second thought, given the modern culture of entitlement,
perhaps you're right after all...

Perhaps I was wearing my "Freudian slip"... ;-)

--
+----------------------------------------+
| Charles and Francis Richmond |
| |
| plano dot net at aquaporin4 dot com |
+----------------------------------------+

 

[Charles Richmond]

Yup. We had a large production program that I'd patch until the
whole thing fell apart - only then would I try to wheedle the 40
minutes of machine time that it took to re-assemble it.

I finally wrote my own assembler. Although it had a number of very
nice features that were missing from the stock assembler, its primary
goal (which I achieved) was to run twice as fast. It was a bit easier
to scrounge 20 minutes of machine time than 40.

What did you do, replace their sequential search of the symbol
table with a hash or an AVL tree???

--
+----------------------------------------+
| Charles and Francis Richmond |
| |
| plano dot net at aquaporin4 dot com |
+----------------------------------------+

 

[keithr]

keithr wrote


Pigs arse they did.

Hmm I don't remember anybody called rod speed at DCR, so how would you know?

Yeah, the boxes of punched cards were used to move data between the
1620 and the 360/50 at the ANU, well before that time you are talking about.

I was at ABS from '73 to '76 and from '80 to '86. ANU, in my experience
were pretty anti-IBM, the academics preferred Univac.

 

[keithr]

keithr wrote


None the ones I ever bought in large quantity ever did.




I've still got about half a box of them left.

That shows you more as an old fart than a geek.

 

[keithr]

It was A4 format, i.e. about the US 8.5x11" format.

Doesn't sound like line printer output, that was usually 135 column
sprocketed paper (a few were 80 columns)