Jeff, gotcha beat on that dropping the cards - always sequence punched the cards in what (memory failing me) in columns 72 - 80. Then when I did drop them (which was often enough) and thru the card sorter, sorting by column 72- 80. Worked for me.

Now wondering how many of these young whippersnappers who might read this even know what a punched card is.

Also used an early HP 1000 machine, input was by teletype writer, that was set up to punched every thing I typed onto paper tape. (Remember those?), saved the reels. Saved my butt more that once on the days we had to produce payroll checks. My then boss had me alter the code so that my check was ALWAYS the last one printed. Great incentive to do things the right way, and on time.

Do not know about yourself, but I started in Fortran on an IBM 709, installed at Union Carbide Corp. headquarters. Later that model was some what revised and released for leasing by IBM as the 7090. Ahh those were the good old days.