IBM 129 KEYPUNCH,KEY PUNCH MACHINE

This is a technological blast from the past! It is an IBM 129 keypunch machine made in 1972. It was installed at the University Of Pennsylvania in 1973 (see the picture of the service log) and has been a feature of the ENIAC museum for about 10 years giving out souvenir cards to visitors. The ENIAC (electronic numerical integrator and computer) was the world's first electronic digital computer, developed by Army Ordnance to compute World War II ballistic firing tables. They had one of those at the museum, too. I wish we could offer that to our faithful Ebayers but it’s being shipped off to some top secret location! The ENIAC museum was dismantled to make way for student labs and this machine was going to be trashed but we thought it was too cool not to offer it to collectors of vintage computer equipment. Here’s a link to an ad from 1971: http://www.columbia.edu/acis/history/129.html. More info can be found by searching for “IBM 129” on Google. This machine has been well maintained over the years and there are still technicians around that will work on it. At the present time there may be something wrong with it but I’m not sure what. All they can tell me at the University is that it won’t punch cards. The service log is included. It is under the removable top cover. There is also a stack of cards as seen below. This sucker is heavy! We estimate its weight to be between 200 and 300 pounds.

The final value came just a little under $900.00 in June 2005