Term of the Moment
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Definition: plugboard
A programming board for punch card machines starting in the 1900s until computers began to proliferate in the 1960s. Cards were always moving from station to station in the machine, and plugboard programming could be tricky because of timing issues. Each wire directs a column from the card to destinations such as a print column or mathematical accumulator. Wires could also close a circuit like an on/off switch. See punch card and accounting machine.
Mounds of Spaghetti
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Love that Pose!
A relatively small plugboard, this was used to direct a machine to read cards in one hopper and punch holes in blank cards in another. (Image courtesy of The Computer History Museum.)
In 1962, Alan Freedman was a Tabulating Technician; a coveted title for the era. This photo made him look like he had a private office, but he was really at the end of a 40-foot room.
Twenty years later, he finally did have his own office just two blocks from Penn Station in New York.