From the early 20th century into the 1970s, Americans used punched cards to enter data into tabulating equipment and then electronic computers. This is an early key-operated punch, based on patents of ...

We think of punched cards as old-fashioned, but still squarely part of the computer age. Turns out, cards were in use way before they got conscripted by computers. Jacquard looms are one famous ...

This cast-iron object has a metal base that holds, at the top front, a sheet of plastic with holes in it, marked with the categories of the 1890 U.S. Census of population. In back of this is a holder ...

If you mention punch cards to most people, they’ll think of voting. If you mention it to most older computer people, they’ll think of punching programs for big computers on cards. But punched cards ...