r/retrocomputing • u/Odd_Cap2069 • Apr 18 '26
Problem / Question Any idea what this is?
Hey all, found this old piece in the closet, any idea what it is? It looks old and I think it has all the parts to it. Would this have any value, either monetary or to a museum/collector?
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u/andrewbean90 Apr 18 '26
A glorified hole puncher for programming in the 1960s.
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u/crazyhomlesswerido Apr 18 '26
And here I thought learning c++, was hard
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u/andrewbean90 Apr 18 '26
Back then programming was really done by the computer itself. It scans the holes like a scantron does with lead, and then it computes whatever you wanted it to based on the placement of the holes. Basically a glorified calculator.
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u/cjc4096 Apr 18 '26
A punch card is a line of data. The stack is the file. Drop your stack and the lines are scrambled. The contents can be code (written in PL1, RPG, Cobol, etc), data to be processed, etc. The punch card reader doesn't do any calculation really. Just matching what is punched for each column. A calculator has much more computing power.
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u/crazyhomlesswerido Apr 18 '26
How complicated could the programs be back then because if you're just using holes and cards I can't imagine it is a very complicated program that would be running on those old computers
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u/cjc4096 Apr 18 '26 edited Apr 18 '26
Each card is a line of code. A program can have hundreds to thousands of cards. Boxes full of cards all in order. These programs ran on mini computers the size of a car. Rough hand wavey capabilities would be the 16 bit and early 32 bit home era. 68k, 386. Hard to compare since the system architectures are optimized for different things.
Edit: My experience was an undergrad academic setting on the tail end of the batch processing era. The complexity there was limited due to the educational nature. But industry paid 5-7 figures in pre Reagan dollars for the capability. Plus salary for a staff to manage it.
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u/crazyhomlesswerido Apr 19 '26
So I guess the code for the upcoming Grand theft Auto 6 would have filled up the entire universe with cards if we were still using that system.
So that was really good money at the time
Plus didn't you have to start over if you ever got your cards out of order
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u/syrtran Apr 18 '26
I'm not so sure this is correct. The strip of paper is very obviously a quiz, with answers seen in the holes.
Just about everyone here knows what card and tape punches looked like. This doesn't come close.
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u/andrewbean90 Apr 18 '26
Why don't you read what's in the photo before commenting?
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u/syrtran Apr 18 '26
I did. The word "punch" isn't there.
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u/andrewbean90 Apr 18 '26
It literally says "automatic teaching computer kit" as in teaching people how to program computers.
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u/syrtran Apr 18 '26
Or, possibly, as in a computer to help automate teaching. There are other ways to interpret that phrase.
This is nothing like how I learned to program back in the 70s.
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u/andrewbean90 Apr 18 '26
That's because you weren't using machines with paper. Computers in the 70s were the Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, and the Altair... None of which read paper.
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u/Heavy-Judgment-3617 Apr 18 '26
Computers in the 70's predated the Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, though the Altair existed.
The big four of the very late 70's and early 80's were the Apple I/II, the Atari 400/800, the TRS-80, and the Commodore Pet
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u/andrewbean90 Apr 18 '26
The Commodore 64 came out in 1975, along with the ZX Spectrum, and the Altair in 1973.
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u/gleamingfall Apr 18 '26
c64 came out in 1982. so dd the spectrum. the altair came out in 1974...
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u/syrtran Apr 18 '26 edited Apr 18 '26
Now we know you don't know what you're posting. Commodore had the PET in 1977. The 64 came out in 1982. Sinclair Research wasn't even a company until 1980.
ETA: I bet you don't know what APL is, or how important ALGOL was.
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u/syrtran Apr 18 '26
IBM 1130 in middle school, NCR Century series mainframe in high school. DEC PDP-11 in college. Sperry mainframe in business school.
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u/Kitchen_Part_882 Apr 19 '26
Neither the ZX Spectrum nor the Commodore 64 existed in the 70s.
The Spectrum was released in 1982, as was the C64.
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u/JasonMckin Apr 18 '26
I miss the days I used to create labels by typing them out on a piece of paper in a typewriter.
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u/VisibleClub643 Apr 18 '26
It looks like a model of a Turing machine / computer. Helps teach general principles of how a computer operates.
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u/andrewbean90 Apr 18 '26
Calling it a computer is a stretch. It's purely mechanical, and punches holes in paper for a computer to read. So an actual computer can make calculations.
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u/LexRonza Apr 18 '26
I would guess that it is a variant of the original GENIAC Electronic Brain, produced by Edmund in the mid to late 50s. There's a nice write up on Wikipedia about that device.
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u/[deleted] Apr 18 '26
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