IT@UT

The title speaks for itself, punching Hollerith cards on a key punch machine. Compared to a clerk-typist, accuracy is even more important. There was a way to strike out an error without throwing the card away, but it was a pain. Forget the rules of capitalization – lower case was rare. When the 3270 terminal replaced the physical cards, but before “end-users” had 3270's, the title “key punch operator” evolved into

Using the 80 * 24 terminal, and mappings layer over it, the operator produced 80 character lines which could be treated as card images.

Punch cards were known as Unit Records, and were read with cards readers. More interesting than a card reader was a sorter. The operator programmed the channels and directions for the sort. If you look at the Input for a JCL sort step, it's mimicking what the operators, a century ago, were setting up.

So, the users would bring their inputs, such as hours worked by employees, for payroll, or grade sheets turned in by instructors. They would come to the User Services window, and hand their stuff over to the control clerk, who would log them in, find the templates for entering them, identify any tapes needed, and schedule them for data entry, by the key punch operators. Then receive the punched decks, schedule the jobs, and hand the decks off to the operators. After the jobs were run, all the outputs – cards, tapes and printouts – came back to the control clerk. The next day, the client (a word we didn't use at the time) would come back and pick up their outputs.