a machine-readable card in which information is encoded as a pattern of punched holes, for interpretation by a data-processing machine
punch card
punch cardWebster's New World College Dictionary, Fifth Edition Copyright © 2014 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
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punch card
noun
A medium for feeding data into a computer, essentially a card punched with holes or notches to represent letters and numbers or with a pattern of holes to represent related data. Also called Hollerith card .
THE AMERICAN HERITAGE® DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, FIFTH EDITION by the Editors of the American Heritage Dictionaries. Copyright © 2016, 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
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Noun
(plural punch cards)
- A card that can have holes or notches cut in it, especially one for storing data, that can be sorted according to combinations of holes present or absent.
- (computing) Such a card, the size of a US dollar bill, having 80 columns of 12 rows used in early mainframe computers.
- A card given to a customer and punched with a hole at each purchase, allowing a reward to be claimed when fully punched.
Usage notes
- Sometimes the blank card was called a punch card, and became a punched card only after holes had been punched in it.
- Also see punched tape and paper tape
English Wiktionary. Available under CC-BY-SA license.
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punch card - Computer Definition
(1) See loyalty punch card.
(2) An early storage medium made of thin cardboard stock that held data as patterns of punched holes. Also called "punched" cards, each of the 80 or 96 columns held one character. The holes were punched by a keypunch machine or card punch peripheral and were fed into the computer by a card reader. From 1890 until the 1970s, punch cards were synonymous with data processing. The concepts were simple: the database was the file cabinet; a record was a card. Processing was performed on separate machines called "sorters," "collators," "reproducers," "calculators" and "accounting machines." Today, the punch card is all but obsolete except for voting systems in some states. The presidential election of 2000 brought punch cards into infamy and made the U.S. the brunt of jokes worldwide for using such antiquated and error-prone systems. The solution in many states was to migrate to electronic voting machines, which happened to be developed without audit trails so that ballots could never be recounted in close elections (see e-voting). So much for progress! See sorter, tabulator and Hollerith machine.
IBM Punch Card
Stemming from Hollerith's punch card tabulating system in 1890, punch cards "were" data processing for more than 70 years. IBM and Sperry Rand were the two major providers of punch card equipment. This 80-column IBM card shows a typical customer master record.
Computer Desktop Encyclopedia THIS DEFINITION IS FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY All other reproduction is strictly prohibited without permission from the publisher. © 1981-2017 The Computer Language Company Inc. All rights reserved.
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