Learning to program on punchcards

Posted by Plutor on Programmers See other posts from Programmers or by Plutor
Published on 2012-05-21T14:06:43Z Indexed on 2012/06/08 10:47 UTC
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I'd like to try programming with punch cards once in my life. How can I do this?

I'm in my 30s, and grew up entirely in the PC era, programming on computers with screens and keyboards. I want to experience the way my father and grandfather used to work. I imagine the hardware (and probably the cards themselves) are no longer manufactured. Are there any universities or museums with functioning punch card readers anymore? I'm in Boston, but I'm willing to travel to do this.

I asked MetaFilter, and I got some mixed answers (along with a lot of "no, don't do this" nay-saying). I did get a pointer to the Retro-Computing Society Of Rhode Island, but I haven't received a response to my email to them yet.

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