The Computer History Museum has a presentation tonight on the history of computer dating: "Algorithms of Love".
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The Computer History Museum has a presentation tonight on the history of computer dating: "Algorithms of Love". I made a special punch card for the event. It wasn't easy to make this card so I'll explain how I did it...
@kenshirriff /subscribe
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The Computer History Museum has a presentation tonight on the history of computer dating: "Algorithms of Love". I made a special punch card for the event. It wasn't easy to make this card so I'll explain how I did it...
To make the heart, I had to figure out the right sequence of characters to form the hole pattern. Inconveniently, some holes don't form valid characters, so I had to "multi-punch" in some columns. This worked for one card, but the keypunch can't duplicate multi-punched cards.
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@kenshirriff /subscribe
@mwichary @kenshirriff
Ken's RSS feed is one of the highlights of the internet....for a certain kind of reader, it has to be admitted.
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To make the heart, I had to figure out the right sequence of characters to form the hole pattern. Inconveniently, some holes don't form valid characters, so I had to "multi-punch" in some columns. This worked for one card, but the keypunch can't duplicate multi-punched cards.
To duplicate the heart cards, I toggled a short program into the 1401 computer to read a card and print out copies. The 1401 has a special feature called "column binary" that allows it to read and punch cards even if the hole pattern isn't valid.
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To duplicate the heart cards, I toggled a short program into the 1401 computer to read a card and print out copies. The 1401 has a special feature called "column binary" that allows it to read and punch cards even if the hole pattern isn't valid.
The card reader/punch (IBM 1403) can punch 250 cards per minute, so the heart cards zipped out at high speed. However, this machine can't print text on cards, so I needed to go back to the keypunch...
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To make the heart, I had to figure out the right sequence of characters to form the hole pattern. Inconveniently, some holes don't form valid characters, so I had to "multi-punch" in some columns. This worked for one card, but the keypunch can't duplicate multi-punched cards.
@kenshirriff
Would a two-pass approach have worked?First duplicating a card with one pattern, then punching another pattern on top of it?
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The card reader/punch (IBM 1403) can punch 250 cards per minute, so the heart cards zipped out at high speed. However, this machine can't print text on cards, so I needed to go back to the keypunch...
@kenshirriff 250/minute?? Dang that’s got to be fun to watch!
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The Computer History Museum has a presentation tonight on the history of computer dating: "Algorithms of Love". I made a special punch card for the event. It wasn't easy to make this card so I'll explain how I did it...
@kenshirriff The card is upside down. The corner cut is always on top.
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@kenshirriff The card is upside down. The corner cut is always on top.
@Datamorph I got most of them right side up, just not the one in the photo
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The card reader/punch (IBM 1403) can punch 250 cards per minute, so the heart cards zipped out at high speed. However, this machine can't print text on cards, so I needed to go back to the keypunch...
@kenshirriff 1403? That was a printer, not a card read/punch.
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To duplicate the heart cards, I toggled a short program into the 1401 computer to read a card and print out copies. The 1401 has a special feature called "column binary" that allows it to read and punch cards even if the hole pattern isn't valid.
@kenshirriff The THINK placard is a nice touch. I used to work for IBM in the 1980s and you see them in the hallways.
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