A Font Editor for the IBM 026 Card Punch

— This is a follow-up on “Punched Card Typography”. For details on and demonstrations of the general workings of the printing mechanism please refer to the main article. —

Similar to the one for the IBM 029, here is a code plate / font editor for the IBM 026 Card Punch.
As its final product the editor generates a hi-res rendering of the code plate currently selected. Predefined or imported code plate data may be selected from the drop-down menu on top of the editor. Code plates may be switched without losing previous edits. Export and import data in JSON-format to preserve data between sessions. Standard code tables are included for reference at the bottom of this page.

Usage

To select a character, click it either in the live-preview or in the code grid.
To set or unset a dot, click its respective position in the dot matrix of the character display.
To change the legend of a character and its display label in the code grid, press the button “Rename”.

Have fun! Mill your own code plate!

Code Plate:

Red squares represent active pins, orange outlines active positions without a pin, black squares inactive pins, and a lightgray circle marks the neutral position of a given cell of the character matrix (code grid 0/0).

IBM Character Code Grid

For reference, here are the encoding grid (IBM 026 BCD-A Commercial) as presented in the IBM manuals. Mind that the rows are laid out upside-down as compared to the physical arrangement found on the code plate. Also shown is the relation of the code positions to the various punch codes.

Character encoding of the IBM 026 card punch.

Character encoding and punch codes of the IBM 026 card punch

Reference & Related Links

[1] IBM Field Engineering Maintenance Manual, 24-Base Machines. (S225-635-5) Dec. 1965

Main article: “Punched Card Typography — IBM 026, 029, 129”
Part 2: IBM 029, Character Patterns E‘A’
See also: A Code Plate / Font Editor for the IBM 029 Card Punch.

Norbert Landsteiner
Vienna, 2018-01-21
www.masswerk.at