IBM Mainframe Forum

Gee, Dick, I remember programming with punch cards (I even had a job in college key punching cards with weather data for one of the professors), but we didn't have any fancy colored cards. Guess I missed the "rainbow". I do remember that if you got on the wrong side of one operator, he would "shuffle" your cards, and we usually only got a few runs a day so we had to learn to deskcheck our programs before we punched them up.
Memories, memories.

We've certainly come a long way since the days of programming with punch cards!

We had cards with a black stripe on the top for EOJ (//) cards. I personally used colored cards for comments and the normal cards for code. I had a program or two that was an entire box of cards (2000).

Hi Guys,

My first IT job (we called it DP back then - Data Processing) was at an insurance company. If nothing else, they have huge data volumes. Our biggest monthly job was to print the statements for all of the agencies in the country. The input to this was sometimes 50+ 3000-card trays that contained the run header/trailer, a state h/t, a "territory" h/t, an agncy h/t, a policy h/t, and the actual "cash" info. Then there were various adjustment entries that needed to be printed on the statement. Each of these was a different color or stripe. As i was young and single then, i was quite happy to get the overtime to run/print the statements. Breaking down this data file was the "rainbow sort".

I do remember that if you got on the wrong side of one operator, he would "shuffle" your cards

This was sometimes known as floor-sorting. . . Remember making a diagonal mark with a felt-tip so that if a program was "dropped" it could be put back together more easily?

We've certainly come a long way since the days of programming with punch cards!

Oh, not everywhere. . .

No...not at all...you guys are simply awesome in solving all our issues regarding sorting. See you guys (old guys) again with many more questions.

This was sometimes known as floor-sorting. . . Remember making a diagonal mark with a felt-tip so that if a program was "dropped" it could be put back together more easily?

Yes, I remember writing stuff on the top of the deck for various reasons. After a bit of "floor-sorting", we quickly learned why columns 73-80 were used for sequence numbers (so you could put your decks back together). That was one of the primary functions of the card sorter.