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[Don]

  The Air Force used 129's for supply well into the mid-80s. They 
punched a pre-printed card out for each item. You pulled the card and 
the item from bins, signed and filled out your unit data, and dropped it 
off at the front desk.
My budget came through 1 day after everyone else at the end of 
September, so it was my job to spend any extra money at the end of the 
year. I could spend the entire night filling out and signing cards.

The supply system still ran on an IBM system 370. It and the drum drives 
took up a room the size of a small house.

IBM did have a luggable with a built-in CRT in the early 70s. It ran 
basic or APL at the flip of a switch and had a keyboard input. It was 
probably the size of an airplane overnight bag.

-Don-

On 10/9/2010 3:07 AM, Earl Miles wrote:
> 20 years from retirement makes you only a few years older than I am. I
> remember the 8" floppies, IBM selectrics, CP/M (though I missed Windows
> 1 since I got my start in the Apple and Commodore sides)...but rarely
> did I ever see punch cards even hanging around serious geeks in the 80s.
> Maybe it's background related. Or maybe the 80s were longer than I
> remember them being. But my memory is that by the late 70s, punch cards
> were pretty much on their way out, and by the time PCs came to market in
> the early 80s, nobody was using them except for places with legacy
> systems that couldn't be upgraded -- and that's 40 years ago now.
>
> I remember visiting a facility that used punch cards in the 80s, but
> even they thought they were antiques at that point.
>
> Just to check my history, I did a quick google and found some terminals
> with monochrome displays, I assume CRTs, from 1969. That's 40 years ago
> by itself. If you were a working adult in the 60s, that'd make you late
> 50s at best, and late 50s isn't 20 years from retirement age (whether or
> not people retire at retirement age is another story). If you were a kid
> in the 60s and happened to be near people who used the stuff, that's
> pretty lucky. I know as a teenager in the 80s I had to work pretty hard
> to get near computers until I managed to wheedle my parents into getting
> me one.
>