[Cialug] I Remember When Computer Specs

[Morris Dovey]

On 7/29/2010 8:46 PM, Matt Breitbach wrote:

> On his way he slipped on some ice and dropped his box of cards and
> they all fell out of order.

BTDT - he has my sympathies. In the early 70's I wrote a utility to 
backup IBM-1130 cartridge disks to cards, and I followed the practice of 
using the last 8 columns for program ID and sequence number.

The (bootable) restore program read a previously-punched backup deck 
(typically about 2 boxes of cards for the 1130 system) and checked both 
ends of the input card image for the sequence field, and would 
flip/rotate the card image as needed - and it didn't matter if the cards 
were out of order.

I showed it off to my boss by dumping both boxes of cards into a big 
trash basket, shaking it vigorously, and loading the input hopper with 
random handfulls of cards. :)