OT - Is this computer for real? (CORRECTION)

D. Hugh Redelmeier hugh-pmF8o41NoarQT0dZR+AlfA at public.gmane.org
Thu Aug 25 05:37:56 UTC 2005


| From: Gary Layng <glayng-rieW9WUcm8FFJ04o6PK0Fg at public.gmane.org>

| I have a keepsake of my late mother: a computer card storage box.

| The computer company?  Remington-Rand.  She stopped working when she became 
| pregnant with her first child, back in 1950/1951.

Remington-Rand only became (the owner of) a computer company in 1950
when they bought the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation.  So the box
may predate that.  They surely didn't sell any computers in Canada for
a few years.

Remington Rand cards were different from IBM cards.  They had 90
characters (two rows of 45 columns) unlike IBM cards with 80
characters in 80 columns.  (IBM introduced a new format of punch card
in the 1970's that was a lot like the RR punch card: 96 characters in
two rows of 48 columns.)

http://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/univac/cards.html

IBM cards were totally dominant.  In all the years I used punch cards,
I never saw a Remington Rand card.  I did see a Univac keypunch, but
it punched IBM cards.

I still use punch cards, but only as "index cards" (I write notes
on the back).  I sometimes look at what was punched on the front and
remember when I wrote that program.
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