Punched cards were on the way out when I started work.

At Uni we had teletypes with paper tape readers and punches, and one green screen VDU. When I got to work there were lots of IBM 3270s but programs were still carried from one office to another on punched cards. Later we got to submitting jobs via TSO with the JCL as an electronic file, but if a program got lost it might still have to be reloaded from the cards. We got a PDP in about 1984, and a Vax a couple of years later, just for the manufacturing department. Thus began my involvement with mini computers. I didn't see a network in operation until I joined my current employer, in 1988 (and then it was thick Ethernet, with vampire taps). The PDP was for producing programs for NC machines - some of which used literally miles of paper tape. Happy days

i used to work in Cad/Cam systems, with the systems that produced the punched tapes for NC machines. We also did a box that you strapped to the side of an NC machine, networked to the CAD system, which emulated a tapes reader. They used some WEIRD versions of RS-232!

Phil

I now work for a company that used to be a cad/cam vendor - who did you work for?

In about 1985 we set up a system which used fibre optic to transmit NC programs down to our profiling machine, that used RS232, and stored the program in the buffer of a DEC VT320 terminal - the machine itself had no onboard memory so the data had to be streamed to it continuously

I'm too young to have worked with this old technology but I remember seeing paper tape in action on a visit to our local Police station with the Cubs circa 1982.

And I did get to use 8" floppies and removeable hard disk platters during work experience from school in 1987.

We were also taught all about punched cards and paper tape at school even though the technology was well on its way out

I now work for a company that used to be a cad/cam vendor - who did you work for?

In about 1985 we set up a system which used fibre optic to transmit NC programs down to our profiling machine, that used RS232, and stored the program in the buffer of a DEC VT320 terminal - the machine itself had no onboard memory so the data had to be streamed to it continuously

I worked for Applicon (later part of the Schlumberger group; now a tiny pimple on the side of EDS).

Phil

Ah - I think we sold our mechanical design arm to them when we decided it wasn't a market we wanted to pursue any more.