does any read punch cards anymore?

[Ethan Dicks]

On 8/25/05, Brad Parker <brad at heeltoe.com> wrote:
> 
> Remember punchcards?

Yep.
 
> Does anyone read them these days?

Not me.
 
> I'm just curious if anyone does, and if they do, how they do it.

I started to write an app in C that could take a medium-res scan of a
punch card (from a fax scanner I have) and "OCR" it, but I kinda lost
interest after I got it as far as locating the edges of the card
within the scan image.  I never wrote any code to look for holes.

For volume production, I think it's well worth maintaining a tabletop
card reader.  They are somewhat rare, but once you have one working,
it's just as easy to read 2000 cards as to read 20.

-ethan