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>>Still, the crash forced the IRS to extend the tax filing deadline one day, delaying some 14 million submissions. For a system that is supposedly so brittle,

>>Still, the crash forced the IRS to extend the tax filing deadline one day, delaying some 14 million submissions. For a system that is supposedly so brittle, they were able to get enough of it back up and running to at least accept submissions within one day? That's pretty amazing for 60 year old technology.

c22 9y ago
You just have to get the stuck card unjammed, then repunch it and recollate...
- thaumaturgy 9y ago
  ...and it was the re-collation step that took a dedicated team of professionals a full day.
  - varjag 9y ago
    To be fair, 140 million taxpayers account for a lot of punchcards.
    - Elv13 9y ago
      (assuming it is not /sarcasm) The data is not stored in punch cards, the programs are/were. The data is/was stored in tapes or in tape emulators. Storing data on cards would make random access wayyyy too slow (the operator would have to retrieve and load the card and keep them sorted manually, which is impossible to do at scale) On tape, however, you can predict the distance you have to rewind by computing the physical length each records take if they have auto incremented IDs. A tape can contain a lot of records. Especially if it's a modern one or an array backed emulated one. At least that's what some people I went to school with told me it's how they did it.
      - rbanffy 9y ago
        I did a bit of stuff with data coming in on punchcards. You get a batch of punchcards, run it through a program (which can load data from tape or other punchcards) and a new batch of new punchcards with updated data come out on the other side, along with an impressive pile of printed invoices. Wide adoption of tape was a lifesaver.
      - DrScump 9y ago
        I doubt that physical media or tape are used beyond initial load onto disk, often directly into a database, with a single IEBGENER step. Heck, that was the case 30 years ago.
cptskippy 9y ago
It's more like it took them an entire day to figure out how to reboot a VM instance.

c22 9y ago

You just have to get the stuck card unjammed, then repunch it and recollate...

thaumaturgy 9y ago
...and it was the re-collation step that took a dedicated team of professionals a full day.
- varjag 9y ago
  To be fair, 140 million taxpayers account for a lot of punchcards.
  - Elv13 9y ago
    (assuming it is not /sarcasm) The data is not stored in punch cards, the programs are/were. The data is/was stored in tapes or in tape emulators. Storing data on cards would make random access wayyyy too slow (the operator would have to retrieve and load the card and keep them sorted manually, which is impossible to do at scale) On tape, however, you can predict the distance you have to rewind by computing the physical length each records take if they have auto incremented IDs. A tape can contain a lot of records. Especially if it's a modern one or an array backed emulated one. At least that's what some people I went to school with told me it's how they did it.
    - rbanffy 9y ago
      I did a bit of stuff with data coming in on punchcards. You get a batch of punchcards, run it through a program (which can load data from tape or other punchcards) and a new batch of new punchcards with updated data come out on the other side, along with an impressive pile of printed invoices. Wide adoption of tape was a lifesaver.
    - DrScump 9y ago
      I doubt that physical media or tape are used beyond initial load onto disk, often directly into a database, with a single IEBGENER step. Heck, that was the case 30 years ago.

cptskippy 9y ago

It's more like it took them an entire day to figure out how to reboot a VM instance.