21 Jun
2015
21 Jun
'15
6:06 p.m.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Subject: Re: [GreenKeys] Replacing Chad, was: Black tape
On Sun, 21 Jun 2015, Jones, Douglas W wrote:
The flaws in the Votomatic were a bit subtle, but in
retrospect, if you
read the patents for the IBM Portapunch (the direct predecessor of the
Votomatic) and for the Votomatic, you find that the flaw that was its
eventual downfall -- at least in the public's mind -- is fully
documented in the patents. Of course IBM's (and later CESI's, after IBM
walked away from the Votomatic in the late 1960s) salesmen never
mentioned those flaws.
Portapunch? Arrgghh!
We had to put up with that Satan-spawn in our University days... Only 40
columns wide, it had specific encodings for FORTRAN words, and it was just
as well that FORTRAN ignored white space (I know this for a fact, when I
fed a deck into a "real" card reader one time).
Being but mere impecunious Uni students and having to actually buy the
things, we resorted to fixing mis-punches by literally sticky-taping the
chads back.
For some reason, the computer operators (IBM 360/50) hated us...
I really do hope that the inventor of Portapunch is still having holes
punched through him with a paper-clip.