Punch cards, I had forgotten about those things. I feel old all of the sudden.

I learned some Basic on a Timex/Sinclair computer (not much more useful than a calculator). Thats the extent of my programming...

Here's an 029 in what appears to be the basement of a building at Columbia, unknown date. I did a double take because it looks exactly like the punch room at my alma mater. We had 4 of them in the dimly lit, low ceiling'd basement of the administration building.





Work on a deck for several weeks, and then drop it on the floor the day before the project is due. You'll never forget punch cards again .

I coded 3-dimensional arrays in COBOL on those things!

Dark Age Mike

Roommate dropped his cards outside on a wet and windy day! Talk about being upset. Lucky for me the FORTRAN and Pascal classes I took then used a system with terminals...no punch cards

Weren’t punch cards in the forefront of "cut and paste" technology?

Of course, that was back in the EDP days where we wore white smocks and pocket protectors.

I had Basic in college, actually took it twice as I dropped out the first time because of grades and to save my GPA. The second time I got a B+ in the 2 credit hour course. My parents told me that if I got a 4.0 they would buy me a car. All my other grades were A's and I got a 3.89 GPA that semester. After I received my dipolma, they told me college was paid for so that is better than a new car. Computer programing is not my thing.

Man, those punch cards were FUN (not). At Bloomsburg State College (circa 1982 before it was Bloomsburg University), you'd submit your COBOL program for compiling and have to wait a day or two for the results. Fix the errors, resubmit, wait 2 days, fix more errors, resubmit, etc., etc. It would take you 3 weeks to print "Hello World!".

000100 IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
000200 PROGRAM-ID. HELLOWORLD.
000300
000400*
000500 ENVIRONMENT DIVISION.
000600 CONFIGURATION SECTION.
000700 SOURCE-COMPUTER. RM-COBOL.
000800 OBJECT-COMPUTER. RM-COBOL.
000900
001000 DATA DIVISION.
001100 FILE SECTION.
001200
100000 PROCEDURE DIVISION.
100100
100200 MAIN-LOGIC SECTION.
100300 BEGIN.
100400 DISPLAY " " LINE 1 POSITION 1 ERASE EOS.
100500 DISPLAY "Hello world!" LINE 15 POSITION 10.
100600 STOP RUN.
100700 MAIN-LOGIC-EXIT.
100800 EXIT.

Use a mans language:

CSECT
SAVE (14,12)
BALR R10,0
USING *,R10
ST R13,SAVE+4
LR R15,R13
LA R13,SAVE
ST R13,8(R15)
B BEGIN
R1 EQU 1
R3 EQU 3
R5 EQU 5
R6 EQU 6
R7 EQU 7
R10 EQU 10
R12 EQU 12
R13 EQU 13
R14 EQU 14
R15 EQU 15
SAVE DC 9D'0'
BEGIN EQU *
L R5,0(R1)
LH R6,0(R5)
LTR R6,R6
BZ WTO1
SH R6,=H'6'
BZ A1000
DUMP DC C'D'
A1000 CLC 2(2,R5),=C'01'
BL WTO1
CLC 2(2,R5),=C'04'
BH WTO1
PACK LEN,2(2,R5)
PACK DISP,5(3,R5)
CVB R6,LEN
CVB R5,DISP
ST R6,LEN
ST R5,DISP
BCTR R6,0
ST R6,LEN1
MVN A2100+1(1),LEN1+3
MVN R1200+1(1),LEN1+3
OPEN (CARDIN,(INPUT))
A1100 GET CARDIN,WORK1
AP CDCT,=P'1'
CLC WORK1(3),=C'111'
BNE A1200
LA R7,TAB
BAL R12,R1000
MVI A1410+1,X'00'
B A1100

Geeze, I consider myself an old-time programmer, and I don't recognize that!

And, I betcha that won't print "Hello World!" on ANYTHING.

That's the first computer language... Assembler.

We still have it at my company.

Now I know why I did so poorly in that class! That language sucks!

I recognized the assembler code as soon as I saw line 1. That was the only language I ever absolutely, positively, unequivocally, HATED.

On the other hand, there's nothing you can't do with it.

00100 TAKE COLLEGE COURSE
00200 WRITE HUNDREDS OF CARDS
00300 STAND IN LINE FOR HOURS TO PROCESS
00400 RETURN TO 00200
00500 RETURN TO 00300
00600 REPEAT UNTIL 00300=
00700 EQUATION WORKS
00800 EXHAUSTION
00900 DEATH
01000 NOTE: EXHAUSTION=FAILING GRADE, DEATH=PASSING
01100 TURN IN ASSIGNMENT
01200 REALIZE THAT THE ASSIGNMENT (A,B,C)
01300 (A) COULD BE DONE QUICKER IN PENCIL
01400 (B) HAS NO REAL MEANING
01500 (C) WAS A TOTAL WASTE OF TIME
01600 MAKE VOW (D, E, F)
01700 (D) NEVER DESIGN A PROGRAM AGAIN
01800 (E) NEVER OWN A COMPUTER W/O GUI ONLY INTERFACE
01900 (F) ONLY PUNCH THE TEACHER AND NOT CARDS
02000 STOP

Good one seadog!

01950 CHANGE MAJORS BEFORE ITS TOO LATE