Punch Cards? REALLY?

Periodically, someone will question my blog description. "Did you really ever use punch cards? Aren't you a little young for those?"

Truth is, Yes I did.
Not because I had to. Not because they were the norm. I used them because they were fast!

REALLY!

Ok, I know that sounds oxymoronic but it turned out to be true. At the time I was an Intern at Rockwell Int doing software QA for part of the B-1 bomber. Once the engineers all found out that they could request actual flight data form test flights to use for testing. The process went something like this.

• [engineer] Jerome, can you run through my module's test suite using the flight data from last Friday's test flight of aircraft #3? I really need it this afternoon!
• [me] Yea, that's not gonna happen, I'll try to get it to you by tomorrow afternoon at best.
• [engineer] No, I already ordered the flight data tape this morning.
• [me] Ok, what's the job id?
• [engineer] um... 3409820
• [me] ... tap tap tap... Ok, looks like that's in the job queue with an estimate run time of tomorrow morning.
• [engineer] NO! I expedited it using up all my computing credits.
• [me] Yep, says here it's been expedited. That got you tomorrow morning. Let me go talk with the RJE guy and see what I can do.
  I walk over to the IT center's Remote Job Entry desk.
• [me] Any chance I can push job 3409820 to the head of the queue?
• [RJE Operator] None, we've got a huge high priority data dump going on for the Air Force that's tied up all our tape drives through the night then there's over 400 expedited jobs in the queue ahead of that one. You're looking at some time after lunch tomorrow at best. Normally I'd suggest driving out to Palmdale but they're tied up too. You might try having a tape shipped from Michigan... there's only 200 jobs in their expedited queue but you'd likely not get that package until day after tomorrow. Want me to transfer your job to their queue?
• [me]Um, no.
  I sit down exasperated on something with a dust cover draped over it. It comes to life under my butt making an awful clatter.
• [RJE Operator] Shit! Sorry, thought that was turned off. Can you turn that damn thing off for me?  He turns to help the other person waiting. The only other person in the room.
• I lift the dust cover to find an actual card reader / writer terminal clattering away trying to punch out cards with what ever keys my butt pressed on the keyboard. It spits out the last card with gibberish on it then quiets down so I hit the power off button and replace the dust cover. 
• [other guy leaving the RJE desk] Wow, what a relic. Didn't even know we had those anymore.
  He leaves the room closing the door behind him.
• [RJE Operator] Yea... and it's on it's own queue... with a dedicated tape drive...
• [me] Silently grinning like The Joker I move the "Be right back" sign to the outside of the door, then close and lock it before turning the card reader back on. RJE guy gives me a terse lesson in the use of a punch card terminal before going back to his work. Three minutes later I printed the job script to a stack of cards. Placing the stack back in the input tray I switch the terminal to execute mode and press run.
• [RJE Operator] Here's your tape, please don't tell anyone about that awful thing, it really is a pain in the ass and has a bad habit of jamming which is a nightmare to fix.
• [me] still smiling like The Joker.
  If I promise to fix any jams and always turn it off when I'm done, can I still use it?
• [RJE Operator] Oh yea, I have to support it, I just hate it and keep it covered so no one else knows it's here.
• [me] Thanks!
  I unlock the door and remove the be right back placard from the door. There are two people waiting in the hall way. I smile sheepishly and depart with my tape.
• [engineer] Hey, That's great, how did you get it so fast?
• [me] Magic!

Over the next four years I never told anyone about the card punch reader. I kept a stack of cards in the locked drawer of my desk with all my scripts on them re-coded so that I only had to change out the 2nd and 3rd card to reference the data set I wanted and how I wanted it filtered or sorted.

He was right about the jamming. fortunately, most of the time I was running those jobs late so I could leave the door unlocked while I spent an hour on my knees scraping my knuckles bloody fixing a jam without worrying about anyone from my department catching me.

I finally came clean with the guy that I trained to replace me when I left. He actually fell into a chair laughing his ass off when he learned my most deeply guarded professional secret. I heard he got another four years out of the beast before they finally came and carted it away. I kinda wish I could have rescued it from the salvage department but by then I was living in Seattle.

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