thinkPhD

Babbie’s Survey Research Methods November 18, 2009

Posted by thinkphd in : RSH9102B , trackback

I picked up a used copy of Earl Babbie’s Survey Research Methods (1997) to help me understand surveys more completely and I almost fell out of my chair when I saw page 204. At the bottom of the page, Figure 11-1 it says “Standard Punch Card for Recording Data.” My oh my I had not seen a punch card since my undergrad days at Troy State! I took a Fortran course (which was considered to be “the” language for science - I was an environmental science major) and those cards were my worst nightmare. You had to sit at a punch machine and punch out hundreds, no thousands, of those cards to run a program. Then you would stack up your cards in order - mind you - and take them to the window of the computer room - and turn them in. And then pray that your program did not fail and you would be able to set up statistical analyses for your experiments.

On page 204 and following there is a whole discussion on using punch cards and the “entrance of computers.” For all you young folks, here is a punch card and a card sorter: