does any read punch cards anymore?

[Paul Koning]

>>>>> "Vintage" == Vintage Computer Festival <vcf at siconic.com> writes:

 Vintage> On Thu, 1 Sep 2005, Dwight K. Elvey wrote:
 >> Maybe one of those industrial steam irons used at the commercial
 >> laundries. I was thinking that you were dealing with them one at a
 >> time. For bulk, you might look into how the banks iron bills. They
 >> have some method that means they have some kind of machine to
 >> handle the problem. These machine must be making it to scrap
 >> dealers.

 Vintage> It's not that big a problem.  It's only if they are severely
 Vintage> deformed (say more than a 10 degree arc).  I just grab a
 Vintage> stack and whack them back into shape, then start the reader
 Vintage> running while I reform another stack and keep feeding the
 Vintage> reader.  It doesn't happen with every deck, and I've gotten
 Vintage> good at finessing the reader to get through most of the
 Vintage> cards without a problem :)

That's a good point.

IBM card readers tend to be more demanding, since they (at least the
ones I know) push the card into the reader by its far edge.  This is
done with a chunk of metal that has a step on it whose height matches
the card thickness.

Most other card readers (for example the DEC/Documation ones) use a
vacuum pick.  The card is grabbed near its leading edge with a
rubber-coated devices that has holes in it leading to a vacuum pump.
So long as the leading edge isn't badly mangled, or you hand it two
cards stapled together, this scheme is very forgiving of bent cards.

      paul