Cruel!<p>The usual solution was to take a marker and swipe the deck along the top side, in a diagonal, so they are much easier to sort.<p>You might recall that Fortran ignored everything beyond column 72. This was where you put the &#x27;sequence number&#x27;, aka line number, so when you drop the deck you stick the cards the sorting machine and voila, it&#x27;s ordered again.<p>Ahh, I see Wikipedia covers this bit of arcana, at <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Computer_programming_in_the_punched_card_era#Columns_73-80" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Computer_programming_in_the_pu...</a> .<p>But there are many stories of the heartbreak of those who didn&#x27;t take one of these precautions.<p>Ha! In looking for one I came across <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.columbia.edu&#x2F;cu&#x2F;computinghistory&#x2F;sorter.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.columbia.edu&#x2F;cu&#x2F;computinghistory&#x2F;sorter.html</a> :<p>&gt; You may have heard the story of the operator who dropped a whole box of cards. Wanting to put things right as quickly as possible, he sorted the cards, without consulting the user. As it turned out, that was the worst possible response. Up until that point, the box had contained a sample of random numbers.
–Ted Powell, Dec 2006