@Datamorph I got most of them right side up, just not the one in the photo

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...

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.

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.

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...