I found this
I remember the first HEC-2 programs and punch cards. Who would have thought we would be where we are today.?ÿ Surveyors led the way.
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Oh, man, that was like three or four lifetimes ago when I had a full head of hair and was sleeping with a teenager every night.
One of the primary developers/maintainers of HEC-RAS lives 3 doors up the street from me.?ÿ Nice guy.
My first foray into the computer world was submitting Hollerith card decks of cross sections and design alignment for USFS road earthwork calculations.?ÿ My memory fades but it involved mailing a suitcase sized box of cards to?ÿ to Colorado(?) where the Navy(?) TOPAZ(?) computer did the calc and returned the card decks and a long printout of the results.?ÿ Took about two weeks.?ÿ I recall the computer had a magnetic core memory and the *killer* fact that if a single card was out of order, missing or mispunched they sent the cards back with an error report and we had to fix it and resubmit.?ÿ ?ÿOnce the OG X-sections deck passed we only sent the design alignment deck with modifications until the earthwork balanced+-.?ÿ A few projects involved ten submittals but we had all winter so no big deal.
I had nearly forgotten the term Hollerith, but, somehow it was still buried in one brain cell.
The fatality mentioned caused by one card being out of order was extremely frustrating.?ÿ In my case that was a one to two day delay each time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herman_Hollerith
Note that he received an Engineer of Mines degree from Columbia and taught mechanical engineering at MIT.?ÿ Founded what we know as IBM.
Fond memories of watching the porthole green screen and working the ten key to keep the data flowing. When things went sideways I would run down to the 'pig pool' and give the printout to the lead.
My scariest memory was my first trip down when I said "can someone help me find Margaret in the pig pool?".
I was eight. That was the only thing that saved me..
My response is covered by this meme because I love your story.
I was only a bit younger than that when I pointed to the A&W drive-in and told the whole bus "That's where Grandma and I go to get our beer."
Was working for a neighbor who wouldn't swear if it would save his mother's life.?ÿ Another neighbor happened to drive past us while we worked.?ÿ The non-swearing neighbor looked surprised and told me, "I can't believe he left the house.?ÿ He told me this morning he was sick.?ÿ He said he had Thushitz."
The one and only computer course I had to take was a Fortran course.?ÿ We had to punch (type in) the cards, bundle them with name, course number, etc. and deliver them to the card reader in another building.?ÿ They were read and transmitted over a phone line to Georgia Tech's mainframe.?ÿ The next day we received the results in our mailbox at school.?ÿ If there was an error (a comma instead of a period, etc.) that card had to be repunched and the bundle run again.?ÿ If there was another error repeat.?ÿ A real pain.
I always thought it was funny that the stack for taking a square root was about 15 cards (if my memory serves me correctly) while it was one push on a calculator.
Andy
i have the same type of memory. ?ÿI think it took us 3 classes to get the computer to print my name. Jp
the stack for taking a square root was about 15 cards (if my memory serves me correctly) while it was one push on a calculator.
Perhaps the exercise was illustrating what went on inside the calculator?
