Tell the Difference Between These Three Pictures 1873
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I expect JMF had something else in mind (and I think I did too). But given this as an example, you make an excellent point. Psychologically, that would be really...
Cramps is because there is no movement to relax and flex the muscles. As a typist I would splay my fingers occasionally. This is why I don't understand how people can use those teensy...
As you are a self-proclaimed expert on data entry, I will be charitable and buttume you have just forgotten that IBM card punches (at least the 026 and 029) had a multi-punch key on the keyboard. There was absolutely no need for 12 pbuttes.
Yes, heavily multipunched cards could be fragile, so there were rules of thumb about how many columns were allowed to contain multipunching.
What the keypunchers preferred wasn't the primary consideration. Until the early-mid 60s most of the processing of survey data was done on unit record equipment. These kinds of tabulations were very difficult, time-consuming and costly if the record extended beyond a single card, so there was a strong incentive to avoid using more than 80 columns.
Even when computer processing became a feasible option, the costs and delays in getting machine time in a batch production environment led people to do some preliminary work on unit-record machines, so those considerations continued to apply.
Don't panic. Let me put it a different way. The IBM 1402 reader-punch, for example, had a reading mode called column-binary which gave you a bit pattern corresponding to the hole-pattern on the card. When used in this mode it did not map each of the 80 cols into a single character. This was quite standard, no hacking required.
Having worked in the survey research field for many years, and having designed and built a lot of software for the needs of that industry, I know a great deal more about it than you, dear.
and shoots herself in the foot...
--brian