Yup. Knew where all the lesser used card punchers were.

Thing was they were in obscure sites and once you were done you would have to hike back to McBryde to hopefully compile and execute. Many a cold night in Blacksburg walking outside with cards in hand. You knew who the computer science majors were because they carried boxes of them. @MrBayAreaHokie, I'll never forget that gusty, windy day on the drillfield when I saw a guy drop two boxes of them, prolly 400-500 cards and the boxes popped open and the cards just blew away. Devastating. I hope that guy is OK.

In response to this post by Brown Water

Posted: 01/16/2022 at 8:34PM

I was in that first engineering class at VT that got a PC -- MrBayAreaHokie 01/16/2022 3:36PM

Nah it was Olympics -- Hoke 01/16/2022 8:05PM

I wasn’t engineering (Arch) but we got slide rules. ** -- PhotoHokieNC 01/16/2022 5:13PM

I had to keypunch cards in order to run Fortran programs. ** -- Hokie`79 01/16/2022 4:49PM

Best confetti that has ever been. ** -- VaTaz 01/16/2022 6:14PM

Same class IBM PC with two 5-1/4 Floppy Drive no Hard Drive $2,500 worked -- jdkhokie 01/16/2022 4:20PM

Sounds about right. I built my first from scratch and the Seagate... -- HokieJay 01/16/2022 10:01PM

And they recommended the dual drive version -- MAHokie69 01/16/2022 7:32PM

Monochrome monitor, DOS, maybe VisiCalc and WordPerfect ** -- Brown Water 01/16/2022 4:32PM

U are right…that was the price….same as tuition, room and board in-state** -- MrBayAreaHokie 01/16/2022 4:29PM

Fortran max max sucks ** -- astrohokie 01/16/2022 4:03PM

Still has no idea what Dr.Harrison Fortran/EF 1oo6, taught----> ** -- bourbonstreet 01/16/2022 5:36PM

Fortran IV With Watfor and Watfiv is what I remember and I have no -- Femoyer Hokie 01/16/2022 4:17PM

Same. Keypunch cards. One program deck never compiled. Even after redo! ** -- ColoVT82 01/16/2022 4:55PM

No kidding. I just remember a big stack of keypunch cards 🤮 ** -- UEMcGill 01/16/2022 4:46PM

And my stack *never* worked. Just wanted to shuffle the deck at times. ** -- Femoyer Hokie 01/16/2022 4:48PM

Punch cards -------------------> ** -- Brown Water 01/16/2022 3:42PM

Yup. Knew where all the lesser used card punchers were. -- HokieJay 01/16/2022 8:34PM

Continuous Do Loop king------>>>> ** -- Stork 01/16/2022 5:35PM

Never forget a girl crossing the drill field with a tall stack of cards and -- turkeywinghokie 01/16/2022 4:49PM

In the basement of Burruss Hall. ** -- Femoyer Hokie 01/16/2022 3:48PM

Been there, dt. ** -- astrohokie 01/16/2022 4:03PM

Had some hanging Chads issues at VT ----------------------------------->> ** -- UTPr0sim 01/16/2022 3:43PM

Don’t drop them on the drill field 😂** -- MrBayAreaHokie 01/16/2022 3:42PM

I was in the first that could buy calculators (we still learned sliderule) ** -- UTPr0sim 01/16/2022 3:40PM

Mid-late 70s? ** -- Brown Water 01/16/2022 4:19PM

Early 70s. Started in 72, bought my first HP in 73. They would not let us -- UTPr0sim 01/16/2022 9:28PM

I remember having games on my TI-83 in high school. ** -- MP4VT2004 01/16/2022 3:39PM

Yup. Knew where all the lesser used card punchers were.

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