Training Video for the IBM 029 Keypunch

[forter4]

https://youtu.be/3fVRGQT1CoM?t=22

There are a couple more videos, but this part was actually about the keyboard itself. The other videos are about the rest of the process

One thing I noticed is the person has to hold the modifier down, including the Alpha modifier, which you have to hold down just to type standard alphas

[inmbolmie]

Thanks, I enjoyed it very much

[kps]

One thing I noticed is the person has to hold the modifier down, including the Alpha modifier, which you have to hold down just to type standard alphas

That's only true for typing alphas into a numeric field (and vice versa). Normally these machines were used for fixed-format data entry, and would be configured (with a card, naturally) so that particular fields were either numeric or alphabetic. The shift keys would then only be necessary to override that. For instance, if the data were a person's name and telephone, the name field would be configured alphabetic and the telephone field would be configured numeric, and the typist would not normally use either shift key at all.

[forter4]

One thing I noticed is the person has to hold the modifier down, including the Alpha modifier, which you have to hold down just to type standard alphas

That's only true for typing alphas into a numeric field (and vice versa). Normally these machines were used for fixed-format data entry, and would be configured (with a card, naturally) so that particular fields were either numeric or alphabetic. The shift keys would then only be necessary to override that. For instance, if the data were a person's name and telephone, the name field would be configured alphabetic and the telephone field would be configured numeric, and the typist would not normally use either shift key at all.

Ahh gotcha. I thought that was a bit off lol

[ddrfraser1]

Pretty cool. Beautiful keyboard.