To please the shes that punch the keys remember these

[ChrisGreaves]

Any old-timers still got enough memory cells left to complete this ditty?
I remember it ended along the lines of "You will get an I for an I".
Thanks in anticipation
Chris

[John Gray]

It doesn't seem that Google has ever heard of that Ode to Data Entry Personnel, and I have never heard of it before, either...

[ChrisGreaves]

It doesn't seem that Google has ever heard of that Ode to Data Entry Personnel, and I have never heard of it before, either...

Thanks John. I am amazed that the ditty doesn't show up; it was common in most places I worked until as late as 1983.
I will dredge my memory:-
To please the shes that punch the keys
Remember these:-
(there followed graphic examples of Z,2; 5;S; 1;I; 0;O; maybe a couple more, then ...)
If with this you do agree, then you will get
An eye for an I and a ...

Back in the 60s/70s some people :ahem: moved from job to job to gain experience on mainframes (Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs), and manufacturers used different internal codes. ICL(UK) used one set and IBM used another, so when I went from an IBM 1401 to an ICL 1903A, then to a CDC Cyber, I had to be careful to use the appropriate symbols when writing out my program on coding forms.

20240202_092131.jpg

Above is a good example of a coding form. Note that the alphabetic letters "O" are slashed and that the numeric zeroes are NOT slashed.

20240202_092152.jpg

In this example the programmer will run into problems (and frankly the publisher should have used a better example), because the alphabetic O and the numeric 0 are indistinguishable. It is possible that this coding form was written by someone who intended to do his own keypunching, but there is no excuse for its use in an example in a book.
Note too that the numeric-one is written with serifs(?) top and bottom.

Each keypunch/verify installation had its own rules (and a copy of the ditty). The keypunch "girls" (yes, in those days) were under strict orders to punch what they saw. A software house would want data typed up with bad data in order to test error-detection.

Let me cast my net wider: If your Mum or Dad ever mentioned data processing, please ask them.

Thanks, Chris
(later) It is possible that the USA may not be aware of this, especially if only USA systems were in use in the USA. In Australia we had machines from both the UK and the USA. At ICL for a while we coded computer programmes) C

[BobH]

Ah! I haven't seen a coding sheet in near half a century, maybe more. And SPL? That is truly ancient.

Chris, I spent 40+ (not quite 45) years in computer rooms and around them. I even managed a staff of 20 keypunch operators. I never heard the ditty. Of course, all my experience was in the US and with mostly IBM hardware, although we did have a DEC or 2 and a Tandem here and there. IIRC, we went to terminals for programmers before 1975, eliminating the need for coding sheets and keypunch operators, not to mention punched cards for programs. That move sent me on a mission to eliminate punched cards altogether making programs write card images to tape or disk for inputs to further processing. I grabbed one of the last boxes of blank 5081s as a memento; but, alas, it got tossed in one of the household moves.

[ChrisGreaves]

Ah! I haven't seen a coding sheet in near half a century, maybe more. And SPL? That is truly ancient.

Careful, my uncle! You are dating yourself

... Of course, all my experience was in the US and with mostly IBM hardware, although we did have a DEC or 2 and a Tandem here and there.

Bingo! In the USA almost always USA manufacturers. DEC was Maynard Massachusetts, right? Tandem Cupertino, California.

I cannot now remember what happened when Mike Patterson (Bless Him!) took pity on me and showed me how to uses the PDP-6.
In particular I can't remember needing to change the keypunch codes of all my (FORTRAN II) parentheses symbols.
I suppose that DEC=IBM in terms of keypunching.
Cheers, Chris

[StuartR]

I worked for DEC from 1979 till they were bought by Compaq ( and then by HP). I have many happy memories of trips to Massachusetts and New Hampshire.

[ChrisGreaves]

I have many happy memories of trips to Massachusetts and New Hampshire.

In my early years I wanted to visit Maynard. That was while I worked in Australia, long before I came to Canada. The DEC System 6 (later upgraded to a System 10) was good for me. I learned how to reboot the operating system (after I thought I had broken the $aus 1967 $250,000 machine.) Managed to write stuff to tape etc, so that by the time I started programmer-in-training in Woolongong January 1968, i already "knew" FORTRAN II, FORTRAN IV, and a smattering of the PDP-6 assembly language AND Macro-6.
I was top of the class in IBM Assembler, thanks to DEC
Cheers, Chris

[GeoffW]

Careful, my uncle! You are dating yourself

I guess that's one date who won't turn him down!

[ChrisGreaves]

I guess that's one date who won't turn him down!

He always gets a from me
Cheers, Chris

[ChrisGreaves]

Ah! I haven't seen a coding sheet in near half a century, maybe more. And SPL? That is truly ancient.

Agreed. I went looking for SPS (I am an Autocoder guy) to determine the difference from SPS.
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/computinghistory/1401.html
https://multicians.org/thvv/1401s.html

So far I believe that the major difference between SPS and Autocoder is that SPS did NOT have a macro processor.
SPS was a two-pass compiler, but I am unsure about Autocoder.

Cheers, Chris

[PJ_in_FL]

...
I suppose that DEC=IBM in terms of keypunching.
...

Maybe for keypunching, but DEC <> IBM as DEC used ASCII character set while IBM, in it's infinite "wisdom", chose to code it's computers using EBCDIC.

How they lasted so long in the business I'll never know.

[PaulB]

And yet IBM still exists (65^th on the 2023 Fortune 500 list) but DEC….

[ChrisGreaves]

Maybe for keypunching, but DEC <> IBM as DEC used ASCII character set while IBM, in it's infinite "wisdom", chose to code it's computers using EBCDIC.

Sad to relate: for my last six months at Uni WA I was not aware of any problem with punched codes.
In January 1968 I traveled to Wollongong NSW (4,000 KM) and was brought up short. At first I thought that the problem, like most problems experienced in WA, was those dastardly "Eastern Staters".
Cheers, Chris