Computer punched cards

The first industrial jobs for computational chemists opened in the early 1960s when such scientists were usually called theoretical chemists or physical chemists. Those early pioneers not only had to prove themselves, they had to prove a whole new approach to answering questions in science, that is, computationally. Human nature being what it is, traditional (experimental) chemists reacted in different ways to computational chemistry some were curious (some of whom even tried their own hand at calculations but often found the early technology—computer punch cards—too bothersome), some were disinterested, and some felt their prerogatives and perquisites were threatened. At the pharmaceutical companies, many of the medicinal chemists (who far outnumbered the computational chemists) were skeptical, if not resentful, of the upstarts." Because of finite resources, one more person hired as a physical (or analytical) chemist often mean one less organic chemist would be hired. 

Figure 1 Image of a computer punch card, known colloquially as an IBM card, used as a medium for data and program storage.

In using the Centroid Colors, a Centroid number is associated with an abbreviation of the ISCC-NBS color description. This number (1-267) is entered on a computer punch card or data processing card at each of six levels of accuracy. This has been done on a commercial basis. An example of the six levels of accuracy would be Level 1, brown (Br) level 2, yellowish-brown (yBr) Level 3, light yellowish-brown (Ly Br). Level 3 accuracy is generally sufficient and has been very satisfactory in commercial applications. Levels 4-6 are much more complicated and are probably not practical for routine usage. 

In the ancient times" the 1950s), data were transferred to computers by using punched cards. But already in 1959 Ascher Opier from Dow Chemical Company reported the use of a light pen for graphical entiy of chemical structures into a computer. Light pens were also used in the Chemical Abstracts Service in the 1970s. 

The invention of punch-card technique was done in 1890 by Herman Hollerith at the US Bureau of Census and used at first for adding up the number of inhabitants in US each tenth year. The technique was greatly expanded beginning in the 1930 s and many scientific applications of punched-card equipment have been found as a computing aid. 

The earliest type of automatic digital calculator to become generally available, starting at about 1945, was the punched-card calculator. These machines were at first entirely electromechanical, but in their modern form are largely electronic. Their intended use was initially in accounting applications, but their utility in various technical problems was soon discovered. Many of the present users of large-scale calculators were introduced to computing by the punched-card calculator. 

The instructions which a calculator receives from punched cards are not different in form from numerical data. In fact, without knowledge of the rules of procedure for a given computer, it would be impossible to distinguish between numerical data and instructions. There is no reason, therefore, why both types of information cannot be stored within the calculator. Doing so has three important advantages ... 

Instructions can be modified by the computer. It is frequently found that the same instruction (or group of instructions) can be used repetitively if changed in some simple way. Since instructions are available in storage and can be subjected to the same arithmetic operations as any other numerical data, the computer can modify its instructions as the calculation proceeds. This permits relatively short sequences of instructions to be equivalent to much longer sequences on punched-card calculators. 

Stevens and Brady (S6) have discussed the use of punched cards in recording process-control data. While the subject of record keeping itself is of little interest here, it is worth remembering that it may later be desired to process these data on a computer. The form of data arrangement should, therefore, be designed with this possibility in mind. 

Dudenbostel and Priestly (D2) have reviewed the importance of the mass spectrometer in the petroleum industry, giving a brief account of the computational work involved. They also describe recent developments which have made it possible for readings from the spectrometer to be converted automatically into digital output. This output may then be fed either directly to a digital computer or through the medium of punched cards. In either case human intervention is minimized, with... 

The data in the memory of the y-ray spectrometer was punched on 8-channel paper tape, converted to punched cards, and processed through a rather primitive computer program which provided both a count per channel output plus a not too reliable routine for peak finding and integrating net area. All results were hand calculated from net peak areas and... 

The first approach might be characterized as rather inflexible and suited to more simple routine work, although punched cards and rolls open the opportunity for variations in some fixed procedures the second and third possibilities are more versatile but still somewhat less flexible than human operators. The approaches (i) to (iii), though capable no doubt of much further extension, are most appropriate for production in large numbers and for repetitive work also, while they may well be far more precise in long runs than human operators, computers and robots can produce rejects in larger numbers more quickly. For all such methods of control the ability to unlock and to vary at times is necessary still—provided a variation is made deliberately and for a sound technical reason. 

The Barrett, Joyner, and Halenda (2) method of pore size distribution calculation requires data for the volumes of vapor adsorbed at 64 relative pressures, between 0.046 and 0.967. The volume of gas in the system at these pressures may be read from a smooth curve drawn through the equilibration points of the chart record or may be interpolated mathematically from a set of data points. In the procedure used, the pressure-volume points, and other data pertinent to the sample and the experiment, are listed in a form convenient to transcribe by key punch to IBM cards. The arrangement of the data on the punch cards is determined by the particular computer program. In this case, a program of the Barrett, Joyner, and Halenda method of pore size distribution calculation had been written for an IBM 704 data-processing unit. 

Weaving machines were first "programmed" by punched-card systems (the Jacquard49 process, 1801). The compilation of census data on 80-column punched Hollerith50 cards became possible in 1886, and speed up the 1890 US census. Assorted card-punches, card-readers, and card-sorters were later commercialized by the Computing Tabulating Recording Company (formed... 

Originally, computer information was contained in memory and printed to punch cards. When you wanted to retrieve the data, you ran the punch cards back into a special reader the information was read back into memory and could then be used. This proved to be a very limited storage medium in terms of capacity and ease of retrieval. A single page of data could take several pages of punch cards. Also, the punch card order was very important. The cards had to be put into the reader in the correct order or the program wouldn t run correctly. Hopefully you kept the cards in their correct order—God forbid you dropped them on the floor or some jokester shuffled them. 

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