(Excerpts from a message dated 10-23-99, Leonard Erickson to Dirk
Stuijfzand)

Hi Leonard--

 DS> (Now we get the OS/2 users who punched cards in the past to enter data
 DS> into computers)

LE>Not only have I punched cards, I've toggled bootstrap code into a
  >mainframe.

LE>And as far as card punching goes, how many of you know what a "drum
  >card" for a keypunch does?

    You _are_ a latecomer!  When I started (on the predecessor to the
IBM Card Programmed Electronic Calculator), our keypunch didn't have a
"drum card" because it wasn't intended for volume data input.  In those
days, "computers" were people and "calculators" were machines.  I don't
remember when the nomenclature changed.

    The very few so-called "von Neumann type" automatic digital
calculators of those days didn't use punched cards; they used punched
paper tape for input.  The first real mainframes (such as the Univac and
the IBM 701) came several years later.

    If we had an active moderator on this echo, that person would have
been complaining about "off-topic" long before now :-).

    Regards,

        --Murray

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