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What are punch cards?

Updated: 8/23/2023
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Kgadu

Lvl 1
15y ago

Best Answer

Punch cards are a very old way of programming a computer. The punch card would have long rows of numbers, representing certain instructions. You would punch a hole through the number corresponding to the instruction you wanted to execute. You would then feed the card into the computer, and it would run the program.

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Wiki User

15y ago
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Wiki User

13y ago

A punched card, punch card, IBM card, or Hollerith card is a piece of stiff paper that contains digital information represented by the presence or absence of holes in predefined positions. Now an obsolete recording medium, punched cards were widely used throughout the 19th century for controlling textile looms and in the late 19th and early 20th century for operating fairground organs and related instruments. They were used through the 20th century in unit record machines for input, processing, and data storage. Early digital computers used punched cards, often prepared using keypunch machines, as the primary medium for input of both computer programs and data. Some voting machines use punched cards.

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Continue Learning about General History

What is the main feature of each computer generation?

vacuum tubes, punch cards, magnetic tape, large sizetransistors, punch cards, magnetic tape, harddisc, medium sizeintegrated circuits, punch cards, magnetic tape, harddisk, medium or small sizemicroprocessors, interactive user interface, harddisk, floppy disc, very small size


What bureau of government first used punch cards to colect data?

The United States Census Bureau was the first government bureau to use punch cards for data collection. They began using punch cards in the late 19th century to process and tabulate census data. This technology greatly improved the speed and accuracy of data processing and became widely adopted by various government agencies and industries.


What happened to the fingerhut punch board cards where people paid no more than 99 cents for a punch to win that picture prize?

i would like to know the same and one large punch with name under it you get one for doing the card and then one person gets prize also for the name under the large circle


What are the advantages and disadvantages of punchcards?

Assuming you are talking about computer punch cards... PRO: They last longer than other media. They don't lose data when exposed to a magnetic field. CON: They are slow to load. The data density is low (you'd need a truck to carry Microsoft Office on punch cards), they are susceptible to being damaged by water and anything else that destroys paper, they can get accidentally shuffled, they take lots of storage space, nobody has card readers anymore.


What were the challenges faced by the use of punched cards?

Cards were a fixed size. They were limited to 80 characters per card, so abbreviations were commonly used. This was one of the issues with the Y2K transition, years had been abbreviated with two characters instead of 4. A program had to be written into the computer through the cards. Each card represented a line of code. If a program had 1000 lines of code, that was 1000 cards that had to be punched out on the machine, and kept in order. If you dropped them, it took forever to resort them. Cards might not feed into the reader correctly, particularly if the weather was humid or damp. A bent card might jam up the machine, destroying some of the other cards, resulting in having to re-punch the cards.

Related questions

Are punch card used for data analysis?

Punch cards store data. That data can then be analysed by feeding the cards into a punch card reader.


What were the Significances of punching cards in computers?

Punch cards were used by computer programmers back when computers used punch cards. The cards were used to tell the computer what to do. Programmers had a machine that they used to write computer programs and it would punch the holes in the cards. It took a lot of cards just to write on program.


What do punch cards store?

information. the position of the punch determines the value


When was punch cards invented?

in 1881


How were 1970 computers programed?

punch cards


Who invented the punch cards?

adonya craft


What kinds of cards were used to control the pattern in textile factories?

Punch cards.


What government first used punch cards?

census


What burearu government first used punch cards?

census


How many columns were on a punch cards in 1929?

80 Columns


How do you connect punch cards to the computer?

Connect it to the computer's tower


The number of voters who voted using punch cards between 2000 and 2004?

The number of voters who used punch cards in the 2000 and 2004 US presidential elections was approximately 38 million in 2000 and around 30 million in 2004. These punch card systems were eventually phased out due to inaccuracies and issues during the counting process.