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Punch cards
Colorado School of Mines. Information & Technology Solutions
Colorado School of Mines. Information & Technology Solutions
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2018
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Abstract
First used in 1725 for textile looms in France, punch cards contain digit information represented by the presence or absence of holes in predefined positions. Now considered an obsolete recording system, punch cards were widely used throughout the 19th century for controlling textile looms and in the 20th century in unit record machines for input, processing, and storing data. Early digital computers used punch cards as the primary medium for input of both computer programs and data. Another common application of punch cards was in voting machines.