[techspeak] (alt.: punch card)
The signature medium of computing's Stone Age, now
obsolescent. The punched card actually predated computers considerably,
originating in 1801 as a control device for mechanical looms. The version
patented by Hollerith and used with mechanical tabulating machines in the
1890 U.S. Census was a piece of cardboard about 90 mm by 215 mm. There is
a widespread myth that it was designed to fit in the currency trays used
for that era's larger dollar bills, but recent investigations have
falsified this.
IBM (which originated as a tabulating-machine manufacturer) married
the punched card to computers, encoding binary information as patterns of
small rectangular holes; one character per column, 80 columns per card.
Other coding schemes, sizes of card, and hole shapes were tried at various
times.
The 80-column width of most character terminals is a legacy of the
IBM punched card; so is the size of the quick-reference cards distributed
with many varieties of computers even today. See
chad, chad box,
eighty-column mind,
green card, dusty deck,
code grinder.
