peter heath
Peter Heath

My First Computer


A state of the art solution to calculating railway workers' pay, and even printing their cheques, aswell. Shunters, firemen, constables, ticket sellers and conductors alike. Overtime calculations no problem. It was blazingly fast, as long as none of the tubes blew. If one did, we popped a panel and replaced it in a NY second. Easy peasy. The procedure was for the pool of smartly dressed, and very popular 'punch girls', with immaculately teased hair, stylish high heel shoes, painted nails and straight seamed nylon stockings to speedily type the relevant info onto a punch card, then on to the sorting room, and into the hoppers. The holes on the cards were then read by contact brushes at the speed of light. (Unless there was a jam). Next, in linear order, into the computers hopper and Bob's your uncle.