The Last of the Punch Card Programmers 149
Peter Cus writes "Cluny Lace, an English lacemaking manufacturer, has reverted to 19th-Century Leavers machines in order to stay competitive. These 19th-Century machines use Jacquard punch cards. Ian Elm, thought to be the last of the card punchers, says young people don't want factory work: 'Younger people coming into a trade want a guarantee of a career out of it, and this is so uncertain.'"
Re:Hard to believe (Score:4, Interesting)
i work in the metalworking trade, and many times an old screw machine can do a run of parts so much more efficiently than a cnc machine that it is used instead.
Computer programming via punch cards is useful ... (Score:5, Interesting)
(*) Fortran was only used in this intro computer science class. This class was required for many engineering and science majors who were more likely to use fortran than computer science majors. Unexpectedly in the mid 1990s I actually used fortran as my company was contracted to move some chemistry software from mainframes to personal computers.
Re:Computer programming via punch cards is useful (Score:5, Interesting)
In the 1980s I had an intro to computer science class where we had to write our first programming assignment in fortran(*) using punch cards.
Back in the 1970's when I was in college, the first day of my first computer class the professor told us that "the keypunch machines are down the hall." I asked him, "uh, as in punch cards?" At that point I'd been hacking assembler code on microcomputers for a few years and doing real-world interfacing, and really wasn't interested in punch cards. Sure, had it been a one-time experience like you had, that would have been interesting. But an entire school year spent in front of a keypunch machine, submitting jobs to an IBM 370, when there were rooms full of 3270 terminals all over the place? No thanks. I dropped that class that afternoon.
Re:Hard to believe (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, if you mean by "screw machine" a machine that makes screws, well, generally they literally stamp fasteners from spools of metal wire. Much faster and more efficient than trying to machine such parts ... that would be hideously slow in comparison.
Not a stamper. Think of a metal lathe, then porcupine it with multiple cutting tools and power feeds, to get a turret lathe. Then add even more clockwork/gearing and it can make multiple parts pretty much hands off, and you got a screw machine.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screw_machine [wikipedia.org]
All that clockwork/gearing is complicated as heck to modify compared to feeding a new gcode file into a CNC. However, being hyper-specialized, if you don't need a slow precisely controlled negative X-axis movement or whatever, a screw machine probably has a big ole high tension spring that moves "instantly" vs the CNC slowly methodically and precisely crawling neg x-axis.
As far as hideously slow, you'd be surprised even in ancient history what a couple horsepower and sharp cutting/forming tools can do...
Re:Hard to believe (Score:3, Interesting)
So its a binary data format battle.
From what (little) I understand of the machines in the article, it seems the new machines have different capabilities than the old ones. In the pursuit of speed, the new machines lack the ability to make designs that are as intricate as the old ones can. While they're still just "lace" to the untrained eye, the old style is capable of producing a better product.
Compare board games of the 1950's-1970's with games of today: There are many cases where plastic pieces have been replaced with printed cardboard. Sure, the game's the same, but it's not the same quality.
The best computer example I can come up with is Pentium chips. They're faster than the old 486s, but not quite as good [wikipedia.org]. Perhaps in time new lace machines will have both speed and ability, but I don't know enough about lace to predict anything.
Re:Hard to believe (Score:5, Interesting)
Not a stamper. Think of a metal lathe, then porcupine it with multiple cutting tools and power feeds, to get a turret lathe. Then add even more clockwork/gearing and it can make multiple parts pretty much hands off, and you got a screw machine.
Okay. I've seen equipment like that, but the screw machines I'm familiar with (I did a lot of data acquisition work in the fastener industry, many moons ago) were basically large solenoid-operated stamping machines. Rows and rows of the things, all thumping out about three or four parts per second. They had separate dies to form the various parts of the fastener, and were fed by large spools of metal wire (steel, brass, whatever.) They were also very loud, as I remember, although not anywhere near what I experienced in a some automotive stamping plants. Earplugs for the win.
These were mostly self-tapping parts (drill screws and the like) and the systems I developed measured various attributes such as drill time, peak and tapping torque values, end-load, and so forth. This was mostly for statistical process control purposes, although I did a number of laboratory test systems as well. Those were used for design testing, as well as assessing performance of competitors' parts.
Re:Hard to believe (Score:5, Interesting)
Modern machines are now being built that are run directly from computers, but I'd say, given that these are huge expensive machines that are often resold and moved to new locations rather than bought new, the majority still run on paper tape.
The issue of quality isn't directly related to the machines being computer-driven. The quality depends on the care of the designer, the 'stitch count' or density, and quality of thread, etc. As with many manufactured goods, you can get lace for less money if you accept lower quality. No surprise there.
I assume the computer-driven machines would let an operator change the stitch count. These days, there are few people (in the West anyway) who know how to create a 'punching' as it is called, and fewer who are interested in learning. Strangely, the remnant of my father's business is just starting to get orders from Asia, so maybe 'Free Trade' is finally coming around to the point where manufacturing costs in the US are competitive with Asia in this regard, but there really is no one ready or willing to meet the manufacturing demand if it ever really comes back. You can probably ditto this sentiment for US shoe manufacturing, furniture, etc.
Re:Hard to believe (Score:3, Interesting)
These days, there are few people (in the West anyway) who know how to create a 'punching' as it is called, and fewer who are interested in learning.
TFA mentions this, "What do young people want to come into this trade for, especially at the manufacturing end - because it's so dirty, you know". Yet there are young people getting into it and Etsy [etsy.com] provides them a sells outlet.
Strangely, the remnant of my father's business is just starting to get orders from Asia, so maybe 'Free Trade' is finally coming around to the point where manufacturing costs in the US are competitive with Asia in this regard
Free trade does that, as there's more trade people demand more pay from their employers. China is seeing more suicides [wtop.com], which is going too far, because employers won't give them raises they demand, though employers [nytimes.com] are giving some raises. China's middle class is rising [wikinvest.com] afterall and there are now 64 Chinese billionaires on Forbes list [globaltimes.cn]. The same is seen in India. Free Trade raises everybody's boat.
Of course China doesn't have free trade, the Chinese currency isn't allowed to float, but trade is more open there now than it has been.
Falcon
Job Security Expectations? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Computer programming via punch cards is useful (Score:5, Interesting)
In those days, UNIX ran on machines that we would consider tiny today, and so it had small input buffers, which you might say it was influenced by the 80-column punched card, or perhaps just by the 32k bytes (or 64k or 128k, if you were rich) PDP-11 system memory size. These buffer size limits were in the kernel, but easier to see in the /bin utilities.
Re:Computer programming via punch cards is useful (Score:2, Interesting)
The level of calculator use depends on the level of the student - the number of times I've seen my students reach for a calculator for simple arithmetic (9 x 13) or similar worries me that they don't truly understand what they are doing. Much of the basic arithmetic helps inform the algebra usage in later classes, which is why things like long division are still relevant. I relented and allow non-symbolic manipulation calculators for my calc classes these days after a student pointed out that their cell phones meant they have a calculator permanently available. I also make a point of assigning a problem or two that the TI-89's choke on to explain why learning the techniques directly is important.
Re:Business basics (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Hard to believe (Score:5, Interesting)
A "screw machine" is the name of an automated lathe, and while they can certainly produce screws, they're often used to make all kinds of cylindrical metal parts. They are not limited to making just screws. We used them to make everything from locomotive fuel injectors to hex-socketed screwdriver shafts.
We also made plenty of screw-threaded items, but never just ordinary "raw" screws. Other, simpler machines, such as the ones you described, had long ago taken over that task.