Bubbles Whiting - Using Punch Cards - Hollerith and IBM

An interview with Bubbles Whiting who, in her early career used punch cards in her everyday work life. Part of the Heritage Lottery funded Viva Computer project from the Centre for Computing History.
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[@davidioanhedges]

"How quickly the mind goes" she says at 82 talking about her monthly wage at 14 ....

[@lztx]

*weekly :)

[@Apeskinny]

We can all aspire... wishfully...

[@americancitizen748]

I can't remember what I did last month...

[@itsmesb4399]

Yes but you’ve got to remember the mind is like a stack of books, it is harder for the book at the bottom to fall off then the one at the top of the pile.

[@thetroublewithtrebles1362]

@@itsmesb4399 Oh, that's so poetic.

[@desmisc9911]

My god she is an untapped historical treasure, her speaking and body language and face are hypnotic.

[@FB0102]

Jack hahah you little piece of shit

[@ArumesYT]

Most old people are untapped historical treasures, but you don't notice it because they don't have a camera and microphone in front of them. So they remain untapped.

[@Katchi_]

God? You ameritards and your gods...

[@paulk314]

If she wrote a sorting algorithm... It would be Bubbles'Sort.

[@KalimbaJammer]

Holy crap, yes!!

[@charliefaber]

I laughed pretty hard at this

[@Shock_Treatment]

Uh huh. You nerdy birdy.

[@GORF_EMPIRE]

bah dump tisssssss!

[@victorrice4549]

quality comment right here

[@gillablecam]

That was marvellous. And love the phrasing of "I go to many talks and lectures, and I never know a thing. I just listen and remember." What a phenomenal person

[@AltimaNEO]

Good advice, too

[@Aerojet01]

@@AltimaNEO I agree. We need more role models like Bubbles. Unfortunately, they're in short supply these days.

[@omalone1169]

​@@AltimaNEO5:00 how did she leave at 14

[@JohnnyBareToes1]

Delightful. I could listen the "Bubbles" talk for hours. Great bit of history captured there :)

[@therealxunil2]

100% agree

[@ThoughtCrimeCriminal]

100% disagree i lasted 3 mins

[@OMGAnotherday]

Me and Bubbles have a lot in common, but years apart, I used to operate switchboards in London 1980’s. The one shown in this video is called a 10x50 dolls eye. (10 incoming/outgoing lines x 50 extensions), the dolls eye refers to the blinking (like a drop down menu) which would tell you who in the office wanted an outside telephone connection line. The 10x50’s could be connected side by side to double or triple the telephone two way traffic. Around about that time they brought out electronic switchboards which instead of cables with brass inserts to create connections they became switches, they were then called automatic switchboards but the weren’t really because they still needed an operator. But still the notion of an employee having their own outside line was rare, if you had your own outside line you were very important. 😊 even in the 80’s London. Also in those days the only telephone supplier was BTO (British Telephone Organisation) (state Monopoly) If you worked in London you also got luncheon vouchers to help with the extra cost of working in London. I felt very well off 😂

[@omalone1169]

​@@ThoughtCrimeCriminal5:35 difference between wage and salary ?

[@guerra_dos_bichos]

imagine this, you are a big shot director on a company watching this 50 years later and no one can remember your name or your companies name or even what you did, but the teenage drones that typed stuff on a weird machine are a piece of history worth remembering!

[@hiqwertyhi]

1:52 "so don't chop it off when you're carving a joint" just marvelous

[@tind33p]

That was the moment I knew I would sit trough the entire video. so glad i did.

[@squeakonline]

I like this lady. "so I must tell them.. Which I did!" 😊 There is nothing better than listening to life stories from someone who has lived a life long before you. I miss my grandparents for this very reason. I would sit and listen for hours about what they did with their lives. What a fantastic interview.

[@virginiastock5518]

I worked on these machines in the 1960's and have had a bent middle finger ever since. It was a good job at the time and it was nice to see these machines again after all these years.

[@user2C47]

@Zero's Customs Why was an IBM computer used for this rather than an electromechanical controller?

[@k1773ns]

stumbled upon this and couldnt look away. hope bubbles is doing well!

[@TheCentreforComputingHistory]

+k1773ns Fantastic isn't she :) Thanks for watching :)

[@millomweb]

@@TheCentreforComputingHistory What's her e-address ?

[@frogz]

.....the year is 2035, bubbles is still healthy and alive and has now learned to use a comptometer from her jar

[@BlastinRope]

Bubbles had a run in with covid last month. Dont worry, Bubbles is fine but covid had such a rough go doctors predict we might see numbers dropping soon.

[@sevenalay]

That was just lovely. People don't talk, don't carry themselves like that anymore.

[@tylerdrainville1136]

sevenalay Bullshit.

[@electron8262]

I wish I could speak in such a calm and intriguing way.

[@Melophile74]

All people do now is speak over you. Excuse me, I was talking

[@nickfifteen]

People can still talk that way today. People also used to talk like crap back then too. The only difference between then and now is that the internet has made the crap talkers more visible. But being more visible doesn't mean anything has actually changed.

[@acmild]

She has a great story-telling skills. The intonations and the spacing between her words are wonderfully soothing.

[@MikeSmith-tx2lp]

My dear old Mum Brenda was a punch card operator and later a verifier at the Prudential Insurance Company in London. In the 1970s I remember her using these machines at home. As a kid I used to collect the punched out pieces as material to shovel around with my Matchbox trucks and diggers. Bless you Mum.

[@smada36]

My mum had a similar career path to Bubbles. Punch cards at the navel docks, then a telephonist at the gas board. I would enjoy hearing the stories of a time before I was born. Brought back some good memories.

[@AndrewDobbie]

She should start her own KZbin channel. Wonderful speaker.

[@Chobaca]

She might be dead now

[@dwayne_dibley]

@@Chobaca I don’t personally know Bubbles, but I did see someone post a few months ago that she’s fine and recently recovered from covid

[@Chobaca]

@@dwayne_dibley 💓

[@Travelinmatt1976]

Thanks youtube, you took 4 years to show me this and I've always been into this kind of stuff. What a sweet wonderful lady.

[@kd1s]

She tells a fantastic tale. I'm so glad you guys could get her to tell her story. It fills in detail that we otherwise would not have heard.

[@neilfurby555]

Lovely lady., I started as a computer programmer in the late 1960s, and was scared silly having to use a manual card punch to get my error riddled IBM assembler language programs into an IBM 360 mainframe. The card punch was an instrument of torture to the fingers and especially challenging when the symbols had rubbed off the keys! I was much relieved when our department acquired a card punch with a typewriter keyboard. Lovely job in those days, surrounded by dozens of youthful incarnations of Bubbles. Great interview/talk, thankyou.

[@omalone1169]

A 360? An assembler ?

[@AllanSitte]

Our seasoned citizens have so many great stories among them. This is another one that we all can enjoy forever now. Thank you for capturing this. Thank you for sharing. Thank you Bubbles for all that you have done.

[@Metatr0n]

2:03 That's one hell of a muscle memory. I thoroughly enjoyed her short lecture, her speech and body language is a really beautiful thing to behold.

[@sergiogrima8331]

And that's how a little girl who "didn't know a thing but listened" grew up to be inspiringly wise. A big round of applause for Bubbles!

[@balaramkrishnahanumanthu5869]

here from standup maths, but should have been here sooner. YT algorithm failed me

[@hacker-7214]

ikr stupd utube always recommedning me finnegan fox videos or cat videos from 6 years old.

[@jk9554]

here from the youtube algorithm... I guess it just took some time to punch it in :p

[@rhydermike]

Articulate and fascinating, for any age.

[@theden0minat0r]

She is a national treasure, I say! Thank you so much for introducing her to the world. What an amazing woman.

[@skyrocketautomotive670]

Listening to this amazing woman is like a warm hug, a national treasure from an amazingly exciting time. Thankyou for the presentation, Bubbles.

[@cnault3244]

Reminds me of the computer science course in high school in 1975. Learned to program in Fortran using punch cards....and the only computer we actually got to see in the entire course was in a movie the showed on day one. The actual computer was in the community college (apparently it only required one room!!!) & the programs we punched out in our high school & the other schools would be picked up & couriered there each evening to be run & printed out. We'd find out in a couple days if our program worked. The other drawback was the school only had 2 punch card machines, & everyone had their time for it scheduled... when we didn't have access to the machine,we had to use the cards & a dark pencil to code in the data.

[@Lafayette_Ronald_Hubbard]

I'd like to commend the person who she came up to initially for seeing the potential. Great video.

[@MaryPegler]

I used these Hollerith machines and a verifying machine in the early 60`s when I worked for the Brooke Bond Tea Company in Cannon Street, London EC4. After a while we used a more automatic machine which I have not been able to find any mention of yet; it was an ITC machine, not IBM.

[@otto295]

I think you might mean an ICT (International Computers and Tabulators) machine. They later became ICL (International Computers Limited) before being taken over by Fujitsu.

[@timjackson3954]

I'm too young to have used a Hollerith punch, we used the electromechanical automatic card punches with a typewriter keyboard. But I did once get called upon to service one of the last card collating machines in commercial use. I had no experience on the machine, but they couldn't find anyone else with suitable skills. A fascinating piece of kit, so many moving parts. Turned out the tongues used to divert the cards would buckle after a while, and had to be carefully straightened. Got it running eventually.

[@Brace67]

The collator that Bubbles mentioned did the following: sequence check a file to insure it was in correct sequence, merge detail cards into a master file, match merge, and select cards to be removed and others to replace them as updates to a file. The collator required a wired board or control panel to be inserted which told it what to do. I operated both the IBM 087 and 188 alphanumeric collators in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. The antique punching machine Bubbles was discussing was eventually replaced with modern keypunch and verify punch machines.

[@rogerbarton497]

Very wise words spoken there. A fair chunk of my past is in that room, I used to be a field service engineer and worked on the Burroughs version of the comptometer (they called it a calculator), the skill and speed of the operators was amazing. A local timber firm was still using a Comptometer in their office in the 1990s. I then worked for ICL and used those 80 column hand punches on occasion for punching individual cards (bulk punching was done by QWERTY keyboard machines by that time) and wound up running my own business as an official Amstrad service centre.

[@caru547]

What an excellent historical video. Thank you Bubbles for your memories and how these machines were used. I’m trying to find a video of a compto meter in use.

[@omalone1169]

I'm here from the Edwin Black video

[@michaelogden5958]

My hat is off to this lady, and I won't pretend to have anything close to her skill and mental acuity. When I was in college in the mid-70s I took an Advanced Physics course in holography and laser interferometry. My project required a crude (this was undergrad stuff) matrix analysis and BASIC (I wasn't a math or computer science major) was the tool I had at hand. My Prof walked me through the math and I cobbled a BASIC routine in a notebook. The college mainframe was in the basement of one of the buildings and I had to make an appointment to get into the "data entry" room. What they had was maybe a generation newer than what Bubbles had, but it was still a crude keyboard with no display. It was a matter of "chunking" holes in punchcards, one character at a time, reading from my handwritten notebook. At the end of the session I had a shoe box kind of thing full of cards. Then I went back to my dorm and did my best to check the cards against my handwritten program (not knowing if my program was even functional). Another appointment and I handed my cards to someone who fed the cards into the mainframe. A few days later I would get inter-campus (paper) mail saying that I could pick up a (tractor-feed green bar, paper) read-out. Over a period of about a month of appointment-needed and painstaking card (code edit) replacements, I was able to get the program to run end-to-end with no errors. The project failed to yield significant results (although I got an "A" in the course ) but it was a key factor in establishing my respect for programmers and future computer savvy.

[@SSmith-fm9kg]

Thank you for recording this moment in history. She is a treasure.

[@MicheIIePucca]

Oh my, I love this lady... and would love to hang around her to listen to all her incredible stories.

[@ctoforhire]

One of the best intros to a tech talk ever.

[@WonderzStevey]

Pleeeease give the full interview, she's a great nanna I would love to get her entire point of view

[@jeffwads]

I could listen to her tell stories all day. Such a soothing voice.

[@cheaterman49]

So wise :-) thanks to Matt Parker for bringing me here, and thanks a lot to Bubbles for all her wisdom! Live long and prosper, as they say :-)

[@leeharvey8334]

what a lovely lady! she explained everything in detail but she put it simply! we want more interviews with this delightful lady! why can't we have more people like you! your a star! please do more interviews Bubbles! we love you! x

[@GlennBroadway]

A stunning piece of documentary. And to think, our country (our world) is full of people like this who will take their stories with them to the beyond. A wonderful film and an amazing person. Thank you!

[@martynraynervlogs4820]

+Glenn Broadway I was the director on this film, Thanks for that endorsement Bubbles was great to film.

[@omalone1169]

​​@@martynraynervlogs48206:00 what is a shilling

[@ConradBraam]

Excellent interview. Good simple explanation of what it really was like to be a punchcard operator. Marvellous story, really is. Thank you for sharing this journey.

[@gwenynorisu6883]

And inherent in this video is another lesson - always take time to talk with, and really _listen_ to your seniors, respectfully and as a friend. They have a whole lifetime of fascinating experience over you. And if you aren't going to be the one to drink that in, carry it forward for other later generations to come, and benefit from it in your own life, then who will? Oh, and be careful when naming your babies. One day, with any luck, they'll be 81 as well... and causing idiots like me to wonder if they have sisters named Blossom and Buttercup ;) I'm curious about those keyboards, now. They have four symbols marked on each key, one number and three letters (plus I assume, one full stop or other punctuation mark). How do you encode those? Presumably you don't just hit the one key and it does for whatever of those symbols you meant, like on a phone keypad, because how do you decode them after? Is that what the 11 and 12 keys are for - strike a number without them and it's just a number, but in combination of one, other, or both, it stands for one of the letters?

[@JohnHollowell]

It seems like for the buttons at 0:54, the top 3 buttons indicate which quadrant on the grid is selected and then you press that button. So every letter/number is 1-9 on the main keys and one of the top buttons.

[@andymcl92]

Buttercup isn't a new name. There's a whole song about it by Gilbert and Sullivan :p My guess is that simply pressing the key gives the number. Pressing one of the top keys first switches alphabet (or quadrant) and then the key press selects the appropriate letter. E.g. if you press key 2, you get a 2. If you press one of the top keys then 2, you get a B, K, or S.

[@HiddenWindshield]

@@andymcl92 Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup are the names of the Powerpuff Girls, which was a superhero cartoon from the early 2000's.

[@andymcl92]

@@HiddenWindshield I know, but Buttercup is the name of a character from HMS Pinafore, a show which has been popular to varying degrees since the 1870s.

[@andymcl92]

@@HiddenWindshield Also, I preferred Fairly Odd Parents!

[@JSchroederee]

I’d love it if Bubbles Hosted/narrated a full length documentary.

[@lordpitnolen2196]

I remember these card punching machines being installed in our office in the mid 60s. They were operated by girls from the new Computer Department of our local council. As our department, Rating, had the largest financial by "customer base", it was decided that the first job for the ICL computer was calculating the rates bills. I recall that the lasses would leave around 4pm and we would sneak into the 'new' machine room to see the machines. On occasion we would punch holes in the cards to make 'real words' by punching holes to spell Happy Birthday" etc. etc.

[@indyracingnut]

My God, this woman's knowledge of early computing should be archived for all time. I even sat up in my chair as I watched....like a little school boy. She was so good at her explanations of how it was done. Remarkable lady.

[@zaprodk]

Bubbles is amazing! - I could listen for hours!

[@doctordapp]

Thank you for telling this history lesson and also for sharing it. This is worth gold for the future, all this knowledge is almost forgotten except for the few bright minds from the past who remain. Thank you.

[@christinedoolan1437]

Oh my this was my job also in aprox 1965. I loved it. So many memories.

[@JoeSnuffie]

My dad worked for NCR in the 70s and I would go to the office with him and watch him feed stacks of punch cards into these large machines then I'd get to play with the discarded cards. He runs his own software company now and has one of the old punch cards on his desk as a reminder of how far things have come.

[@K3NnY_G]

Kinda crazy to see in her hands how when she's interacting with the machine a certain direct-ness and accuracy comes back about her. Operating that thing is part of her being.

[@atariboy9084]

As a teenager she had her house bombed by the German plane and all she was upset about is missing out her sausage and chips for dinner. God I love her.

[@loewenherz1977]

Thank you, Bubbles!

[@mrembeh1848]

Greetings from Grant (and Matt :D )

[@F.E.Terman]

Got here because you told me... Glad you did! Marvelous.

[@lachygonzalez]

More Bubbles please!

[@radscientist]

How quickly the mind goes... The hands still remember. The pride she shows in the work she's done is amazing.

[@edgeeffect]

We had one of those key-punches at school in the 1980s but sadly it was seized up and nobody had the wherewithal to fix it... so it's nice to see one in operation at last.

[@therealdonnawagner]

She reminds me so much of my Grandma, who was from England and who sadly passed 13 years ago. She speaks and even looks a lot like her, and my Grandma used to love to tell me stories of what she used to do as a young lady. Truly a beautiful video. Bubbles is a treasure and brought tears to my eyes remembering how much I miss listening to my Grandma. 😭😭😭❤

[@hassanawodi5888]

Been wondering how the punch card get data input and this answered my question. Great interview and a wonderful grandma.

[@Aerojet01]

What a remarkable lady. I could listen to her all day long. An eloquent talker and very knowledgeable.

[@HarleyHerbert]

This was a joy to watch. More museums should do this sort of thing more often, it's great to learn about history directly from the people who actually lived it.

[@gordonbradley3241]

I'm 75 in the UK ? My first proper job after school was operating an ICL 1905A. Hollerith cards ? Punched paper tape ? Magnetic tape ? The works ! They looked like ships engine rooms in comparison ! They know nothing nowadays ! We worked in " machine code " ! None of your fancy programming languages for us ! Headhunted at age 19 from Newcastle to London ? Great days ! We made a fortune because nobody else knew one end of a mainframe from the other ! Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaw !

[@jeffk3570]

What a treat, thank you for this lovely video.

[@manueledelisio]

That was amazing. Thank you so much for sharing all those memories!

[@cyclenut]

I was born in the early 60'''s in the US. I remember seeing lots of punch cards. I know Sears, hospitals and some time schools used them. In high school I learned to type on an IBM selectrict. I almost learned key punch, but for some reason I didn't.

[@peytonbass5396]

Very nice. Thank you for capturing this piece of history!

[@nbreeden]

Thank you Bubbles. You’re delightful and this was wonderful to watch.

[@inescansing1363]

Oh my gosh! Thank you so much for making and uploading this!! =)

[@ColinTimmins]

What a great video, so glad Bubbles could share her story.

[@Brisius]

Wow, thank you so much. How exciting was that to listen

[@MichaelSHartman]

Charming. Thank you for the interesting video.

[@jrsmoots]

Wonderful interview!

[@jimboAndersenReviews]

Every bit of what Bubbles addresses here is good knowledge. I have just been picked from a courier job, to being a desk jockey, processing updates for the company. There are still plenty of manual verification of data to have a full working day, some of the work process could be improved. -Her advice of admitting to not know everything in advance, is spot on.

[@mrfashionguy1]

Thank you Bubbles for laying the groundwork for us. -A 22 year old CS engineer

[@TheRandomGuyTheFarNoGameCat]

I loved every single thing about this

[@thetroublewithtrebles1362]

In about 1970, I was a keypunch operator, but we had full keyboards, and the cards were stacked automatically by the machine.

[@disposablebasterd]

She’s so sweet! I’d love to hear her tell stories about her jobs and past

[@MrLingering]

Thank you Bubbles for sharing

[@MisutaaAsriel]

This video is so endearing and warming. I could listen to stories from her for hours. Wish her well and many years ahead of her!

[@youregrammersucks]

What a wonderful lady. Thank you for videoing this, and thank you to Bubbles for taking the time to share her memories with us.

[@JNELSON1987]

Thank you for making my night Bubbles, hope you’re well!!

[@stsr11]

Thanks Bubbles! Fascinating. Sent this to my son who is also a Whiting.

[@jersey-dude]

When she was 14, her “computers” were mechanical punch card systems and IBM mainframes (1st edition). Now, at 82 (in 2016) she could own a smartphone. Incredible technological progress. When I was 14, my computer was an 80286 IBM compatible home computer. What on gods earth will I see at 82?!

[@skellygirlx]

Thank you so much for this wonderful video. Bubbles, you are an amazing human being! Thank you for sharing your story!

[@Ianjcarroll]

Thank you Bubbles for parting with such truly wonderful knowledge.

[@nucksfordacup]

I'm fascinated by the evolution of what are now computers, and have been scavenging and reading up on a lot of things. Thank you for uploading, and send my regards to Bubbles!

[@gabegarcia6425]

Bubbles is awesome. Also really glad I found this channel. I really love computing history.

[@KarlHamilton]

What an amazing woman. Could listen to her stories for hours!

[@AravindKumar-rk6yz]

Thanks for tapping this masterpiece video!

[@DanielCooper1]

What an amazing story. What an amazing lady. Thank you for sharing this.

[@Geenimetsuri]

Absolutely wonderful video! What a charming person! A treasure trove of stories!

[@stephentoback]

What a wonderful video. Love this woman.

[@jamesslick4790]

WOW! She is GOLD, That was the coolest thing I've watched in ages!

[@gowdsake7103]

Love your name and a great Demo TY

[@watchviewer]

You are really interesting to listen to Bubbles and what a great memory you have. Very good advice as well.

[@computerdynamo]

Interesting stories and great advice. Thank you.

[@jitterbuba]

Great story and insight. Mrs Bubbles speaks so soft and articulated.

[@pgronemeier]

My dad was a computer programmer, and worked for IBM in Chicago in the 50s-60s. When I was a kid, he'd take us downtown and let us punch our names etc on those cards. Then take them to that other machine and it would sort them. I was just a kid, but I remember seeing those rooms with the big computers with reels that started and stopped. We had millions of those punch cards at home. I would make pathways and my brother would draw on the back. I forgot all about that until now. But 50+ years is a long time ago. Oh well..LoL

[@gabrieleorioli1760]

She is a treasure. I am thankful for having found this video.

[@RandomRetr0]

Wonderful description/demonstration of a Hollerith machine.

[@FruitMuff1n]

I love her and I love the idea of this as a series! The series being: people explaining, with the original hardware, how they used these machines and what they thought of them.