page_title: Keypunch
section_title: IBM 129 Card Data Recorder
hierarchical_section_title: Keypunch / Post-WW II IBM keypunches and verifiers for 80-column cards / IBM 129 Card Data Recorder
caption_attribution_description: English: An IBM 129 Card Data Recorder.
context_page_description: A keypunch is a device for precisely punching holes into stiff paper cards at specific locations as determined by keys struck by a human operator. Other devices included here for that same function include the gang punch, the pantograph punch, and the stamp.
  For Jacquard looms, the resulting punched cards were joined together to form a paper tape, called a "chain", containing a program that, when read by a loom, directed its operation.
  For Hollerith machines and other unit record machines the resulting punched cards contained data to be processed by those machines. For computers equipped with a punched card input/output device the resulting punched cards were either data or programs directing the computer's operation.
  Early Hollerith keypunches were manual devices. Later keypunches were electromechanical devices which combined several functions in one unit. These often resembled small desks with keyboards similar to those on typewriters and were equipped with hoppers for blank cards and stackers for punched cards. Some keypunch models could print, at the top of a column, the character represented by the hole punched in that column.
context_section_description: Introduced with the System/370 in 1971, the IBM 129 was capable of punching, verifying, and use as an auxiliary, on line, 80 column card reader/punch for some computers. A switch on the keyboard console provided the ability to toggle between the punch and verify modes.
  The transistorized IBM 129 Card Data Recorder's primary advantage over other IBM keypunches was that it featured an electronic 80-column buffer to hold the card image. When using earlier IBM keypunches, a keystroke error required the card to be ejected by pressing the Release and Register keys, the error corrected by pressing the Duplicate key until the error column was reached, typing the correct data for the rest of that card, then pressing the Release key and manually removing the bad card from the output card stacker before it was placed in the deck (this required some practice, but quickly became an automatic action that you no longer had to think about). With the 129, a keystroke error could be erased by pressing the Backspace key and re-keyed. The entire 80-column card was punched automatically, as fast as the mechanism could go, when the Release key was pressed.
  Logic was in SLT modules on a swing out, wire-wrapped backplane.
  A secondary advantage of the 129 was that the speed of the keying operation was not limited by punching each column at the time of the keystroke.
  The 129 could store six programs in its memory, selectable by a rotary switch. Unlike earlier keypunch machines, the program cards were read into memory via the regular card-feed path, and were not wrapped around a "program drum".
  Thanks to its use of electronic memory, the 129 did not have a separate "read station" with a pin-sense unit to enable duplication of data from one card to the next. Instead, duplication was based on the stored image of the previous card. Cards could also be "read-in" through an optical read unit integrated into the punch station.
caption: An IBM 129 Card Data Recorder
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