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79-452: The technology of punched cards dates back to the 18th century when it was used for mass production of woven textiles and later used as a recording and playback system in player pianos. The use of punched cards for recording and tabulating data was first proposed and used by Semyon Korsakov around 1805. In 1832 Charles Babbage proposed using similar cards to program and to store computations for his calculating engine. Punched card technology

158-516: A control panel , could do both addition and subtraction of selected fields to one or more counters and print each card on its own line. At some signal, say a following card with a different customer number, totals could be printed for the just completed customer number. Tabulators became complex: the IBM 405 contained 55,000 parts (2,400 different) and 75 miles of wire ; a Remington Rand machine circa 1941 contained 40,000 parts. In 1931, IBM introduced

237-509: A field . The first card of a group of cards, containing fixed or indicative information for that group, is known as a master card . Cards that are not master cards are detail cards . The Hollerith punched cards used for the 1890 U.S. census were blank. Following that, cards commonly had printing such that the row and column position of a hole could be easily seen. Printing could include having fields named and marked by vertical lines, logos, and more. "General purpose" layouts (see, for example,

316-440: A penny column represents the values zero through eleven; 10 (top), 11, then 0 through 9 as above. An arithmetic sign can be punched in the adjacent shilling column. Zone punches had other uses in processing, such as indicating a master card. Diagram: Note: The 11 and 12 zones were also called the X and Y zones, respectively. In 1931, IBM began introducing upper-case letters and special characters (Powers-Samas had developed

395-420: A column are called zone punching positions , 12 (top), 11, and 0 (0 may be either a zone punch or a digit punch). For decimal data the lower ten positions are called digit punching positions , 0 (top) through 9. An arithmetic sign can be specified for a decimal field by overpunching the field's rightmost column with a zone punch: 12 for plus, 11 for minus (CR). For Pound sterling pre-decimalization currency

474-435: A fast, accurate means of manually punching holes in specially scored IBM punched cards. Designed to fit in the pocket, Port-A-Punch made it possible to create punched card documents anywhere. The product was intended for "on-the-spot" recording operations—such as physical inventories, job tickets and statistical surveys—because it eliminated the need for preliminary writing or typing of source documents. In 1969 IBM introduced

553-664: A fifth company, the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company (CTR). In 1923 CTR acquired 90% ownership of Dehomag, thus acquiring patents developed by them. In 1924 CTR was renamed IBM . As an IBM subsidiary, Dehomag became the main provider of computing expertise and equipment in Nazi Germany . Dehomag gave the German government the means for two official censuses of the population after 1933 and for searching its data. Nazi government used

632-513: A magnetic tape encoder in 1965, a system marketed as a keypunch replacement which was somewhat successful. Punched cards were still commonly used for entering both data and computer programs until the mid-1980s when the combination of lower cost magnetic disk storage , and affordable interactive terminals on less expensive minicomputers made punched cards obsolete for these roles as well. However, their influence lives on through many standard conventions and file formats. The terminals that replaced

711-597: A method of recording and playing back performances on a harmonium using punched cards. The system was called the Mélographe Répétiteur and "writes down ordinary music played on the keyboard dans le langage de Jacquard", that is as holes punched in a series of cards. By 1887 Carpentier had separated the mechanism into the Melograph which recorded the player's key presses and the Melotrope which played

790-411: A motto for the post- World War II era (even though many people had no idea what spindle meant). With the development of computers punched cards found new uses as their principal input media. Punched cards were used not only for data, but for a new application - computer programs, see: Computer programming in the punched card era . Unit record machines therefore remained in computer installations in

869-475: A new, smaller, round-hole, 96-column card format along with the IBM System/3 low-end business computer. These cards have tiny, 1 mm diameter circular holes, smaller than those in paper tape . Data is stored in 6-bit BCD , with three rows of 32 characters each, or 8-bit EBCDIC . In this format, each column of the top tiers are combined with two punch rows from the bottom tier to form an 8-bit byte, and

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948-484: A pair are formed by combining that punch with a 9 punch. Alphabetic and special characters use 3 or more punches. The British Powers-Samas company used a variety of card formats for their unit record equipment . They began with 45 columns and round holes. Later 36, 40 and 65 column cards were provided. A 130 column card was also available – formed by dividing the card into two rows, each row with 65 columns and each character space with 5 punch positions. A 21 column card

1027-467: A powerful tool for business data-processing. By 1950 punched cards had become ubiquitous in industry and government. "Do not fold, spindle or mutilate," a warning that appeared on some punched cards distributed as documents such as checks and utility bills to be returned for processing, became a motto for the post- World War II era. In 1956 IBM signed a consent decree requiring, amongst other things, that IBM would by 1962 have no more than one-half of

1106-586: A service and that the cards were part of the machine. IBM fought all the way to the Supreme Court and lost in 1936; the court ruled that IBM could only set card specifications. "By 1937... IBM had 32 presses at work in Endicott, N.Y., printing, cutting and stacking five to 10 million punched cards every day." Punched cards were even used as legal documents, such as U.S. Government checks and savings bonds. During World War II punched card equipment

1185-502: A significant hole punch or by the cards corner-cut. More advanced functionality was available in the IBM 101 Electronic Statistical Machine , which could Reports and summary data were generated by accounting or tabulating machines . The original tabulators only counted the presence of a hole at a location on a card. Simple logic, like ands and ors could be done using relays. Later tabulators, such as those in IBM's 300 series , directed by

1264-422: A supporting role for keypunching, reproducing card decks, and printing. Many organizations were loath to alter systems that were working, so production unit record installations remained in operation long after computers offered faster and more cost effective solutions. Cost or availability of equipment was another factor; for example in 1965 an IBM 1620 computer did not have a printer as standard equipment, so it

1343-425: A variety of machines. The IBM 519 Document-Originating Machine could perform all of the above operations. The IBM 549 Ticket Converter read data from Kimball tags , copying that data to punched cards. With the development of computers, punched cards were also produced by computer output devices . IBM collators had two input hoppers and four output pockets. These machines could merge or match card decks based on

1422-478: A variety of punched cards and unit record machines for creating, sorting, and tabulating punched cards, even after the development of electronic computers in the 1950s. Both IBM and Remington Rand tied punched card purchases to machine leases, a violation of the US 1914 Clayton Antitrust Act . In 1932, the US government took both to court on this issue. Remington Rand settled quickly. IBM viewed its business as providing

1501-670: Is 12 only, "-" is 11 only, and "/" is 0 + 1). The Space character has no punches. The information represented in a column by a combination of zones [12, 11, 0] and digits [0–9] is dependent on the use of that column. For example, the combination "12-1" is the letter "A" in an alphabetic column, a plus signed digit "1" in a signed numeric column, or an unsigned digit "1" in a column where the "12" has some other use. The introduction of EBCDIC in 1964 defined columns with as many as six punches (zones [12,11,0,8,9] + digit [1–7]). IBM and other manufacturers used many different 80-column card character encodings . A 1969 American National Standard defined

1580-415: Is a piece of card stock that stores digital data using punched holes. Punched cards were once common in data processing and the control of automated machines . Punched cards were widely used in the 20th century, where unit record machines , organized into data processing systems , used punched cards for data input, output, and storage. The IBM 12-row/80-column punched card format came to dominate

1659-549: Is called a stub card . 80-column cards were available scored, on either end, creating both a short card and a stub card when torn apart. Short cards can be processed by other IBM machines. A common length for stub cards was 51 columns. Stub cards were used in applications requiring tags, labels, or carbon copies. According to the IBM Archive: IBM's Supplies Division introduced the Port-A-Punch in 1958 as

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1738-520: Is vendor specific. In general each column represents a single digit, letter or special character. Sequential card columns allocated for a specific use, such as names, addresses, multi-digit numbers, etc., are known as a field. An employee number might occupy 5 columns; hourly pay rate, 3 columns; hours worked in a given week, 2 columns; department number 3 columns; project charge code 6 columns and so on. Original data were usually punched into cards by workers, often women, known as keypunch operators, under

1817-411: The IBM 701 and IBM 704 , card data was read, using an IBM 711 , into memory in row binary format. For each of the twelve rows of the card, 72 of the 80 columns, skipping the other eight, would be read into two 36-bit words, requiring 864 bits to store the whole card; a control panel was used to select the 72 columns to be read. Software would translate this data into the desired form. One convention

1896-766: The Warsaw Ghetto . The punch cards bore the indicia of the German subsidiary Dehomag. Leon Krzemieniecki, the last surviving person involved in the administration of the rail transportation to Auschwitz and Treblinka , stated he knew the punched card machines were not German machines, because the labels were in English. Income from the machines leased in General Government was sent through Geneva to IBM in New York. Punched card#History A punched card (also punch card or punched-card )

1975-478: The keypunch , sorter, and tabulator unit record machines. These inventions were the foundation of the data processing industry. The tabulator used electromechanical relays to increment mechanical counters. Hollerith's method was used in the 1890 census. The company he founded in 1896, the Tabulating Machine Company (TMC), was one of four companies that in 1911 were amalgamated in

2054-531: The pantograph "keyboard punch". It featured an enlarged diagram of the card, indicating the positions of the holes to be punched. A printed reading board could be placed under a card that was to be read manually. Hollerith envisioned a number of card sizes. In an article he wrote describing his proposed system for tabulating the 1890 U.S. census , Hollerith suggested a card 3 by 5 + 1 ⁄ 2 inches (7.6 by 14.0 cm) of Manila stock "would be sufficient to answer all ordinary purposes." The cards used in

2133-671: The tabulating machines that Dehomag received before violent events like Kristallnacht for tracing Jews and dissidents. It enabled them to search databases rapidly and efficiently, and the methods were used throughout occupied Europe by the Gestapo and others to locate and arrest its victims, contributing to the Holocaust . Dehomag leased and maintained the German government's punched card machines. Before World War II , Dehomag's general manager for Germany, Hermann Rottke, reported directly to IBM President Thomas J. Watson in New York. It

2212-457: The 1880s Herman Hollerith was the first to record data on a medium that could then be read by a machine. Prior uses of machine readable media had been for lists of instructions (not data) to drive programmed machines such as Jacquard looms and mechanized musical instruments . "After some initial trials with paper tape, he settled on punched cards [...]". To process these punched cards, sometimes referred to as "Hollerith cards", he invented

2291-514: The 1890 census had round holes, 12 rows and 24 columns. A reading board for these cards can be seen at the Columbia University Computing History site. At some point, 3 + 1 ⁄ 4 by 7 + 3 ⁄ 8 inches (83 by 187 mm) became the standard card size. These are the dimensions of the then-current paper currency of 1862–1923. This size was needed in order to use available banking-type storage for

2370-710: The 1920s they had units for carrying out basic arithmetic operations. Hollerith founded the Tabulating Machine Company (1896) which was one of four companies that were amalgamated via stock acquisition to form a fifth company, Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company (CTR) in 1911, later renamed International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) in 1924. Other companies entering the punched card business included The Tabulator Limited (Britain, 1902), Deutsche Hollerith-Maschinen Gesellschaft mbH (Dehomag) (Germany, 1911), Powers Accounting Machine Company (US, 1911), Remington Rand (US, 1927), and H.W. Egli Bull (France, 1931). These companies, and others, manufactured and marketed

2449-422: The 60,000,000 punched cards to come nationwide. Hollerith's original system used an ad hoc coding system for each application, with groups of holes assigned specific meanings, e.g. sex or marital status. His tabulating machine had up to 40 counters, each with a dial divided into 100 divisions, with two indicator hands; one which stepped one unit with each counting pulse, the other which advanced one unit every time

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2528-528: The Carroll press accounted for as much as 25 percent of the company's profits. Discarded printing plates from these card presses, each printing plate the size of an IBM card and formed into a cylinder, often found use as desk pen/pencil holders, and even today are collectible IBM artifacts (every card layout had its own printing plate). In the mid-1930s a box of 1,000 cards cost $ 1.05 (equivalent to $ 23 in 2023). Unit record equipment Starting at

2607-717: The Hollerith Tabulating Machine to Brown's Tables of the Moon . By the late 1920s, customers wanted to store more data on each punched card. Thomas J. Watson Sr. , IBM's head, asked two of his top inventors, Clair D. Lake and J. Royden Pierce , to independently develop ways to increase data capacity without increasing the size of the punched card. Pierce wanted to keep round holes and 45 columns but to allow each column to store more data; Lake suggested rectangular holes, which could be spaced more tightly, allowing 80 columns per punched card, thereby nearly doubling

2686-481: The IBM 047 Tape-to-Card Printing Punch (which was almost identical, but with the addition of a printing mechanism) read data from punched paper tape and punched that data into cards. The IBM 063 Card-Controlled Tape Punch read punched cards, punching that data into paper tape. The operation of Hollerith/BTM/IBM/Bull tabulators and many other types of unit record equipment was directed by a control panel . Operation of Powers-Samas/Remington Rand unit record equipment

2765-401: The IBM 5081 below) were also available. For applications requiring master cards to be separated from following detail cards, the respective cards had different upper corner diagonal cuts and thus could be separated by a sorter. Other cards typically had one upper corner diagonal cut so that cards not oriented correctly, or cards with different corner cuts, could be identified. Herman Hollerith

2844-544: The capacity of the older format. Watson picked the latter solution, introduced as The IBM Card , in part because it was compatible with existing tabulator designs and in part because it could be protected by patents and give the company a distinctive advantage. This IBM card format, introduced in 1928, has rectangular holes, 80 columns, and 10 rows. Card size is 7 + 3 ⁄ 8 by 3 + 1 ⁄ 4 inches (187 by 83 mm). The cards are made of smooth stock, 0.007 inches (180 μm) thick. There are about 143 cards to

2923-425: The card. IBM's Fred M. Carroll developed a series of rotary presses that were used to produce punched cards, including a 1921 model that operated at 460 cards per minute (cpm). In 1936 he introduced a completely different press that operated at 850 cpm. Carroll's high-speed press, containing a printing cylinder, revolutionized the company's manufacturing of punched cards. It is estimated that between 1930 and 1950,

3002-405: The control of a program card (called a drum card because it was installed on a rotating drum in the machine), which could automatically skip or duplicate predefined card columns, enforce numeric-only entry, and, later, right-justify a number entered. Their work was often checked by a second operator using a verifier machine, also under the control of a drum card. The verifier operator re-keyed

3081-505: The control panel's wiring as illustrated here . The Remington Rand Interfiling Reproducing Punch Type 310-1 was designed to merge two separate files into a single file. It could also punch additional information into those cards and select desired cards. Collators performed operations comparable to a database join . An interpreter prints characters on a punched card equivalent to the values of all or selected columns. The columns to be printed can be selected and even reordered, based on

3160-410: The corresponding information into the card. Aperture cards have a cut-out hole on the right side of the punched card. A piece of 35 mm microfilm containing a microform image is mounted in the hole. Aperture cards are used for engineering drawings from all engineering disciplines. Information about the drawing, for example the drawing number, is typically punched and printed on the remainder of

3239-399: The development of computers in the 1950s. Punched card technology had quickly developed into a powerful tool for business data-processing. By the 1950s punched cards and unit record machines had become ubiquitous in academia, industry and government. The warning often printed on cards that were to be individually handled, "Do not fold, spindle or mutilate", coined by Charles A. Philips, became

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3318-418: The end of the nineteenth century, well before the advent of electronic computers , data processing was performed using electromechanical machines collectively referred to as unit record equipment , electric accounting machines ( EAM ) or tabulating machines . Unit record machines came to be as ubiquitous in industry and government in the first two-thirds of the twentieth century as computers became in

3397-436: The first commercial alphabetic punched card representation in 1921). The 26 letters have two punches (zone [12,11,0] + digit [1–9]). The languages of Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Spain, Portugal and Finland require up to three additional letters; their punching is not shown here. Most special characters have two or three punches (zone [12,11,0, or none] + digit [2–7] + 8); a few special characters were exceptions: "&"

3476-557: The forming of a fifth company, the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company , later renamed IBM . Following the 1900 census a permanent Census bureau was formed. The bureau's contract disputes with Hollerith led to the formation of the Census Machine Shop where James Powers and others developed new machines for part of the 1910 census processing. Powers left the Census Bureau in 1911, with rights to patents for

3555-594: The idea until spring of 1940. IBM New York established a special subsidiary in the occupied General Government territory, Watson Business Machines , to deal with railway traffic there during the Holocaust in Poland . The German Transport Ministry used IBM machines under the New York-controlled subsidiary in Warsaw , not the German subsidiary. Watson Business Machines operated a punch card printing shop near

3634-451: The inch (56/cm). In 1964, IBM changed from square to round corners. They come typically in boxes of 2,000 cards or as continuous form cards. Continuous form cards could be both pre-numbered and pre-punched for document control (checks, for example). Initially designed to record responses to yes–no questions , support for numeric, alphabetic and special characters was added through the use of columns and zones. The top three positions of

3713-468: The industry. Many early digital computers used punched cards as the primary medium for input of both computer programs and data . Data can be entered onto a punched card using a keypunch . While punched cards are now obsolete as a storage medium , as of 2012, some voting machines still used punched cards to record votes. Punched cards also had a significant cultural impact in the 20th century. The idea of control and data storage via punched holes

3792-491: The last third. They allowed large volume, sophisticated data-processing tasks to be accomplished before electronic computers were invented and while they were still in their infancy. This data processing was accomplished by processing punched cards through various unit record machines in a carefully choreographed progression. This progression, or flow, from machine to machine was often planned and documented with detailed flowcharts that used standardized symbols for documents and

3871-615: The machine's control panel wiring. Later models could print on one of several rows on the card. Unlike keypunches, which print values directly above each column, interpreters generally use a font that was a little wider than a column and can only print up to 60 characters per row. Typical models include the IBM 550 Numeric Interpreter, the IBM 557 Alphabetic Interpreter, and the Remington Rand Type 312 Alphabetic Interpreter. Batches of punched cards were often stored in tub files , where individual cards could be pulled to meet

3950-599: The machines he developed, and formed the Powers Accounting Machine Company. In 1927 Powers' company was acquired by Remington Rand . In 1919 Fredrik Rosing Bull , after examining Hollerith's machines, began developing unit record machines for his employer. Bull's patents were sold in 1931, constituting the basis for Groupe Bull . These companies, and others, manufactured and marketed a variety of general-purpose unit record machines for creating, sorting, and tabulating punched cards, even after

4029-565: The mechanism. In 1804 Joseph Marie Jacquard demonstrated a mechanism to automate loom operation. A number of punched cards were linked into a chain of any length. Each card held the instructions for shedding (raising and lowering the warp ) and selecting the shuttle for a single pass. Semyon Korsakov was reputedly the first to propose punched cards in informatics for information store and search. Korsakov announced his new method and machines in September 1832. Charles Babbage proposed

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4108-459: The middle tier is combined with two more punch rows, so that each card contains 64 bytes of 8-bit-per-byte binary coded data. As in the 80 column card, readable text was printed in the top section of the card. There was also a 4th row of 32 characters that could be printed. This format was never widely used; it was IBM-only, but they did not support it on any equipment beyond the System/3, where it

4187-527: The model 600 multiplying punch. The ability to divide became commercially available after World War II. The earliest of these calculating punches were electromechanical. Later models employed vacuum tube logic. Electronic modules developed for these units were used in early computers, such as the IBM 650 . The Bull Gamma 3 calculator could be attached to tabulating machines, unlike the stand-alone IBM calculators. Card punching operations included: Singularly or in combination, these operations were provided in

4266-435: The most common punched card formats is the IBM 5081 card format, a general purpose layout with no field divisions. This format has digits printed on it corresponding to the punch positions of the digits in each of the 80 columns. Other punched card vendors manufactured cards with this same layout and number. Long cards were available with a scored stub on either end which, when torn off, left an 80 column card. The torn off card

4345-426: The multifunction unit 3525 used a different encoding scheme for column binary data, also known as card image , where each column, split into two rows of 6 (12–3 and 4–9) was encoded into two 8-bit bytes, holes in each group represented by bits 2 to 7 (MSb numbering , bit 0 and 1 unused ) in successive bytes. This required 160 8-bit bytes, or 1280 bits, to store the whole card. As an aid to humans who had to deal with

4424-443: The music. At the end of the 1800s Herman Hollerith created a method for recording data on a medium that could then be read by a machine, developing punched card data processing technology for the 1890 U.S. census . His tabulating machines read and summarized data stored on punched cards and they began use for government and commercial data processing. Initially, these electromechanical machines only counted holes, but by

4503-436: The number of character positions available, e.g. 80-column card . A sequence of cards that is input to or output from some step in an application's processing is called a card deck or simply deck . The rectangular, round, or oval bits of paper punched out were called chad ( chads ) or chips (in IBM usage). Sequential card columns allocated for a specific use, such as names, addresses, multi-digit numbers, etc., are known as

4582-578: The other dial made a complete revolution. This arrangement allowed a count up to 9,999. During a given tabulating run counters were assigned specific holes or, using relay logic , combination of holes. Later designs led to a card with ten rows, each row assigned a digit value, 0 through 9, and 45 columns. This card provided for fields to record multi-digit numbers that tabulators could sum, instead of their simply counting cards. Hollerith's 45 column punched cards are illustrated in Comrie 's The application of

4661-594: The punched card manufacturing capacity in the United States. Tom Watson Jr.'s decision to sign this decree, where IBM saw the punched card provisions as the most significant point, completed the transfer of power to him from Thomas Watson, Sr . The Univac UNITYPER introduced magnetic tape for data entry in the 1950s. During the 1960s, the punched card was gradually replaced as the primary means for data storage by magnetic tape , as better, more capable computers became available. Mohawk Data Sciences introduced

4740-632: The punched cards, the IBM 3270 for example, displayed 80 columns of text in text mode , for compatibility with existing software. Some programs still operate on the convention of 80 text columns, although fewer and fewer do as newer systems employ graphical user interfaces with variable-width type fonts. The terms punched card , punch card , and punchcard were all commonly used, as were IBM card and Hollerith card (after Herman Hollerith ). IBM used "IBM card" or, later, "punched card" at first mention in its documentation and thereafter simply "card" or "cards". Specific formats were often indicated by

4819-508: The punched cards, the IBM 026 and later 029 and 129 key punch machines could print human-readable text above each of the 80 columns. As a prank, punched cards could be made where every possible punch position had a hole. Such " lace cards " lacked structural strength, and would frequently buckle and jam inside the machine. The IBM 80-column punched card format dominated the industry, becoming known as just IBM cards , even though other companies made cards and equipment to process them. One of

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4898-480: The punches for 128 characters and was named the Hollerith Punched Card Code (often referred to simply as Hollerith Card Code ), honoring Hollerith. For some computer applications, binary formats were used, where each hole represented a single binary digit (or " bit "), every column (or row) is treated as a simple bit field , and every combination of holes is permitted. For example, on

4977-717: The requirements of a particular application. Electrical transmission of punched card data was invented in the early 1930s. The device was called an Electrical Remote Control of Office Machines and was assigned to IBM. Inventors were Joseph C. Bolt of Boston & Curt I. Johnson; Worcester, Mass. assors to the Tabulating Machine Co., Endicott, NY. The Distance Control Device received a US patent in Aug.9,1932: U.S. patent 1,870,230 . Letters from IBM talk about filling in Canada in 9/15/1931. The IBM 046 Tape-to-Card Punch and

5056-408: The source data and the machine compared what was keyed to what had been punched on the original card. An activity in many unit record shops was sorting card decks into the order necessary for the next processing step. Sorters, like the IBM 80 series Card Sorters , sorted input cards into one of 13 pockets depending on the holes punched in a selected column and the sorter's settings. The 13th pocket

5135-486: The use of "Number Cards", "pierced with certain holes and stand[ing] opposite levers connected with a set of figure wheels ... advanced they push in those levers opposite to which there are no holes on the cards and thus transfer that number together with its sign" in his description of the Calculating Engine's Store. There is no evidence that he built a practical example. In 1881, Jules Carpentier developed

5214-459: The various machine functions. All but the earliest machines had high-speed mechanical feeders to process cards at rates from around 100 to 2,000 per minute, sensing punched holes with mechanical, electrical, or, later, optical sensors. The operation of many machines was directed by the use of a removable plugboard , control panel , or connection box . Initially all machines were manual or electromechanical . The first use of an electronic component

5293-438: Was awarded three patents in 1889 for electromechanical tabulating machines . These patents described both paper tape and rectangular cards as possible recording media. The card shown in U.S. patent 395,781 of January 8 was printed with a template and had hole positions arranged close to the edges so they could be reached by a railroad conductor 's ticket punch , with the center reserved for written descriptions. Hollerith

5372-537: Was comparable to the IBM Stub card. Mark sense ( electrographic ) cards, developed by Reynold B. Johnson at IBM, have printed ovals that could be marked with a special electrographic pencil. Cards would typically be punched with some initial information, such as the name and location of an inventory item. Information to be added, such as quantity of the item on hand, would be marked in the ovals. Card punches with an option to detect mark sense cards could then punch

5451-450: Was developed independently on several occasions in the modern period. In most cases there is no evidence that each of the inventors was aware of the earlier work. Basile Bouchon developed the control of a loom by punched holes in paper tape in 1725. The design was improved by his assistant Jean-Baptiste Falcon and by Jacques Vaucanson . Although these improvements controlled the patterns woven, they still required an assistant to operate

5530-435: Was directed by a connection box. Control panels had a rectangular array of holes called hubs which were organized into groups. Wires with metal ferrules at each end were placed in the hubs to make connections. The output from some card column positions might connected to a tabulating machine's counter, for example. A shop would typically have separate control panels for each task a machine was used for. For many applications,

5609-456: Was for blanks and rejects. Cards were sorted on one card column at a time; sorting on, for example, a five digit zip code required that the card deck be processed five times. Sorting an input card deck into ascending sequence on a multiple column field, such as an employee number, was done by a radix sort , bucket sort , or a combination of the two methods. Sorters were also used to separate decks of interspersed master and detail cards, either by

5688-510: Was further developed for data-processing by Herman Hollerith from the 1880s. It was used for the 1890 United States Census and for the census work of several foreign governments. Willy Heidinger , an acquaintance of Hollerith, licensed all of Hollerith’s The Tabulating Machine Company patents in 1910, and created Dehomag in Germany. In 1911 The Tabulating Machine Company was amalgamated (via stock acquisition) with three others, creating

5767-480: Was in 1937 when a photocell was used in a Social Security bill-feed machine. Electronic components were used on other machines beginning in the late 1940s. The term unit record equipment also refers to peripheral equipment attached to computers that reads or writes unit records, e.g., card readers , card punches , printers , MICR readers. IBM was the largest supplier of unit record equipment and this article largely reflects IBM practice and terminology. In

5846-591: Was legal for companies in United States to conduct business with Germany directly until the country entered the war in December 1941. Watson had received Order of the German Eagle medal at the Berlin ICC meeting in 1937, but after Nazis' pogroms against Jews started in 1938 Watson himself wanted to distance himself and IBM from Germans but was convinced not to do so by Secretary of State Hull and he gave up

5925-673: Was normal in such installations to punch output onto cards and then print these cards on an IBM 407 accounting machine. Specialized uses of punched cards such as toll collection, microform aperture cards , and punched card voting kept unit record equipment in use into the twenty-first century. The basic unit of data storage was the punched card . The IBM 80-column card was introduced in 1928. The Remington Rand Card with 45 columns in each of two tiers, thus 90 columns, in 1930. Powers-Samas punched cards include one with 130 columns. Columns on different punch cards vary from 5 to 12 punch positions. The method used to store data on punched cards

6004-507: Was originally inspired by railroad tickets that let the conductor encode a rough description of the passenger: I was traveling in the West and I had a ticket with what I think was called a punch photograph...the conductor...punched out a description of the individual, as light hair, dark eyes, large nose, etc. So you see, I only made a punch photograph of each person. When use of the ticket punch proved tiring and error-prone, Hollerith developed

6083-515: Was quickly superseded by the 1973 IBM 3740 Data Entry System using 8-inch floppy disks . The Powers/Remington Rand card format was initially the same as Hollerith's; 45 columns and round holes. In 1930, Remington Rand leap-frogged IBM's 80 column format from 1928 by coding two characters in each of the 45 columns – producing what is now commonly called the 90-column card. There are two sets of six rows across each card. The rows in each set are labeled 0, 1/2, 3/4, 5/6, 7/8 and 9. The even numbers in

6162-516: Was to use columns 1 through 72 for data, and columns 73 through 80 to sequentially number the cards, as shown in the picture above of a punched card for FORTRAN. Such numbered cards could be sorted by machine so that if a deck was dropped the sorting machine could be used to arrange it back in order. This convention continued to be used in FORTRAN, even in later systems where the data in all 80 columns could be read. The IBM card readers 3504, 3505 and

6241-670: Was used by the Allies in some of their efforts to decrypt Axis communications. See, for example, Central Bureau in Australia. At Bletchley Park in England, "some 2 million punched cards a week were being produced, indicating the sheer scale of this part of the operation". In Nazi Germany, punched cards were used for the censuses of various regions and other purposes (see IBM and the Holocaust ). Punched card technology developed into

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