sorting 3906

.......... deeper previous levels snipped to preserve space ... :) Dear, dear. .. Recall that the high priority rush was SPECIFICALLY your hypothetical example TO CHANGE THE CARD SEQUENCE NUMBERS. :) Yes the drum card would have -+++++ .. in 1-72 and blanks in 73-80. Or perhaps 0++++ in 73-77 and blanks in 78-80. In which case you would start the job with a card pre punched with leading five digits of the sequence number, in the read station. That way you would only need to key the last three digits, but would need to stop every 1000 cards i.e. twice-box to read in a new pre punched sequence #. Gosh, what's wrong with a contest? I might learn something. Perhaps the job could be easily done on a 519 reproducer, and a 548 interpreter. i.e. three pbuttes on the deck. 2) interpret cols 1-60 3) interpret cols 61-80 Yes the printing doesn't line up nicely over the punched columns. Bit it would be so much faster.

Of course I only worked in a University academic computing centre, mainly with IBM gear. Things might have been different at DEC. For example our keypunch operators routinely verified all keypunching. Their work was mostly punching data for researchers. Programmers and students did most of their own keypunching and verified that via the mark one eyeball. Previously at school, the tab shop had a reproducer, a collator, a sorter, and a 407. Though I never learned how to wire a plug board.