[Ads-l] software "patch"

[James Landau]

On  Fri, 20 Dec 2024 00:08:34 Zone-0500  Garson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
<quote>Thanks Ben. The1954 definition of patch (noun) emphasizes the
rerouting of control into a routine and out of the routine. This is
analogous to changing the incoming and outgoing lines of an electronic
component. That is the task accomplished by a patchboard or patch
panel. OED has entries for patchboard and patch panel. These seem to
be the closest precursors in the domain of electronics.

The 1952 citation mentions "removable patch panels of the type used in
the IBM punched-card machines". Interesting. I am not sure what it
means.
<end quote>
I have worked with IBM cards from 1965 to 1984 and in all that time I never saw anyone put a patch on an IBM card or heard anyone talk about doing so.
Reason not: 1) the patched card may jam in the card reader 2) the hole in the card and the adjacent space is only a couple of millimeters and the average computer user probably wouldn't be able to make a patch that would fit and not cover adjacent holes.  I might add that the Hollerith punch card, so familiar to baby boomers, was introduced by Hollerith in 1885 and I do not know if adhesive tape existed then.  (Herman Hollerith not only invented the "IBM card" but founded a company to manufacture them.  This company changed its name to "IBM" in 1924).
(However, a typesetter friend told me that in his shop there were X-acto knife _experts_ who made patches, but in punched paper tape not punch cards).
Furthermore IBM keypunches (the machines that punch holes in punch cards) read and duplicate cards at 10 columns per second, meaning 8 seconds to read and duplicate a card.  To correct one card column adds at most 2 seconds; in other words, making a corrected duplicate card takes only 10 seconds whereas cutting a patch takes...
"Patch panel" has nothing to do with correcting cards.  A patch panel is a plugboard.  Inserting "patch cords" into the plugboard would program the machine to do what you wanted.  I had experience using the patch panel on an IBM 88 collator, which takes two decks of cards and merges them together.  The patch panel tells the collator which columns to look at when merging decks etc.
James Landau
jjjrlandau at netscape.com

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