A friend has saved data on punch-cards and now need to access the information on the cards. He would prefer to do this with a mechanical reader instead of an optical solution that is quite time consuming.
If you have a functioning reader or a fast optical solution please let me so and I will forward contact information.
Thats a pretty old and impressive technology!!! I never had the chance to work with such a machine, but it is a technical milestone I briefly touch in some lectures ;-)
I don't think that there are machines left in private ownership (especially as they have never been intended to be used by private persons; as far as I know...).
Using google image search for 'hollerith machine museum' gives a couple of pictures from different museums (including their location). Maybe it could be an option to ask one of these institutions in your vicinity.
Jan
Thank you for your answer. There are a few card readers in museums nearby, but none of these are operational.
Sorry to hear that. I don't have access to these machines either.
What about -time consuming- manual evaluation? With a small set of cards it might be possible.
Or scanning the cards on a black background under standardised conditions and orientations and using some code (e.g. Matlab) to identify the punch holes...
By the way... what type of data is stored on these cards? Pretty often these data are national/local census data that might be available from your resident's registration office...
Jan
The data is from 1970-ties and I do not have information on the format other that it is stored on cards.
There exist an online card interpreter,http://www.masswerk.at/cardreader/, which I recommended, but that turned out to be quite time-consuming.
He is still hoping to find a mechanical reader, but might change his mind.
This interpreter is for pretty modern 'cards' and the date ~1970 indicates that we are probabliy talking about two different things.
The 'old' Hollerith machines date back into the 1870th. Since the 1920th the CTR (later a company belonging to IBM) further developed such tabulating machines. These old cards can not be read by card readers as still used in the 1970th.
The card reader in the interpreter reads 'modern' punch cards. Such devices should be better available and more widespread than the old Hollerith machines I have been talking about. Nevertheless, you still need additional background information how to interpret the data, as they are binary representations that give sense when read according to the underlying 'look up table'.
Such 'modern' card readers may be still available in some universities, IBM Norway or some banks.
Sorry for not being able to give better information...
Jan
Hello Jonas,
you will remenber our contact in Hamburg (last century!).
Now - it is unbelievebable! - I have a practicable solution of your question:
At the University of Stuttgart, Germany they have a permanent possibility
of reading hollerith cards and reformatting.
I give you a descripztion (in German language) and also an URL which will
be useful to come in contact with this people:
2004 ...
Damit wir die Daten der Lochkarten und Wechselplatten der IBM 1130-Anlage archivieren und sichern können, haben wir eine V.24-Schnittstelle an den Lochstreifenstanzer "angeflanscht". Es ist somit möglich, durch Umstecken eines Kabels Daten statt auf Lochstreifen auszustanzen per serieller Schnittstelle z.B. auf einen UNIX-Rechner zu übertragen. Wir haben daher auch einige Assembler- und FORTRAN-Programme geschrieben, die Lochkartenstapel oder Wechselplatten einlesen und 1:1 übertragen. Die Abbilder der Wechselplatten lassen sich z.B. problemlos in einem 1130-Emulator verwenden. Wir sind seither in der Lage, beliebige Lochkarten einzulesen und zu sichern. Wir können z.B. Programme auf Lochkarten auf einen modernen Rechner übertragen, nach ASCII umwandeln und auf CD brennen.
The URL:
http://computermuseum.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/ueber2.html
I hope you can solve the problem and I wish you a good time
Greetings from Hamburg
Yours Günter Guthöhrlein
The "modern" punch card used by IBM in the 70's would be 80 columns long by 12 rows high; measuring 7-3/8" (18.8 cm) x 3-1/4" (8.3 cm). If the data is alpha-numeric, then there are two standard schemes depending on the date of the equipment. Until the mid 60's the code was BCDIC and later EBCDIC. There are interchange tables for converting between those two and for converting to ASCII. If the cards have the data printed along the top, then it will be easy to determine which coding scheme was used.
Ask your friend for more info and also, approximately how many cards need to be read.
Dear Günter,
I have forwarded the information. Nice to hear from you after all these years. I am not really working with laser spectroscopy anymore, but do some work on hfs occasionally but then analysis or calculations.
Yours, Jonas
Dear Dr Pepper, (couldn't resist!)
Thank you for your answer. I have forwarded the answer and my friend will probably come back with more information.
Jonas
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