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A keypunch is a device for precisely punching holes into stiff paper cards at specific locations as determined by keys struck by a human operator. Other devices included here for that same function include the gang punch, the pantograph punch, and the stamp. The term was also used for similar machines used by humans to transcribe data onto
punched tape
Five- and eight-hole punched paper tape
Paper tape reader on the Harwell computer with a small piece of five-hole tape connected in a circle – creating a physical program loop
Punched tape or perforated paper tape is a form of data storage ...
media.
For
Jacquard looms, the resulting punched cards were joined together to form a paper tape, called a "chain", containing a
program
Program, programme, programmer, or programming may refer to:
Business and management
* Program management, the process of managing several related projects
* Time management
* Program, a part of planning
Arts and entertainment Audio
* Progra ...
that, when read by a loom, directed its operation.
[Bell, T.F. (1895) '' Jacquard Weaving and Designing'', Longmans, Green And Co.]
For
Hollerith machines and other
unit record machines the resulting
punched card
A punched card (also punch card or punched-card) is a piece of stiff paper that holds digital data represented by the presence or absence of holes in predefined positions. Punched cards were once common in data processing applications or to di ...
s contained
data
In the pursuit of knowledge, data (; ) is a collection of discrete values that convey information, describing quantity, quality, fact, statistics, other basic units of meaning, or simply sequences of symbols that may be further interpreted ...
to be processed by those machines. For computers equipped with a
punched card input/output
A computer punched card reader or just computer card reader is a computer input device used to read computer programs in either source or executable form and data from punched cards. A computer card punch is a computer output device that punches ...
device the resulting punched cards were either data or programs directing the computer's operation.
Early Hollerith keypunches were manual devices. Later keypunches were electromechanical devices which combined several functions in one unit. These often resembled small desks with
keyboard
Keyboard may refer to:
Text input
* Keyboard, part of a typewriter
* Computer keyboard
** Keyboard layout, the software control of computer keyboards and their mapping
** Keyboard technology, computer keyboard hardware and firmware
Music
* Musi ...
s similar to those on typewriters and were equipped with hoppers for blank cards and stackers for punched cards. Some keypunch models could print, at the top of a column, the character represented by the hole(s) punched in that column. The small pieces punched out by a keypunch fell into a
''chad'' ''box'', or (at
IBM) ''chip box'', or ''
bit bucket
In computing jargon, the bit bucket (or byte bucket) is where lost computerized data has gone, by any means; any data which does not end up where it is supposed to, being lost in transmission, a computer crash, or the like, is said to have g ...
''.
In many
data processing
Data processing is the collection and manipulation of digital data to produce meaningful information.
Data processing is a form of ''information processing'', which is the modification (processing) of information in any manner detectable by an ...
applications, the punched cards were verified by keying exactly the same data a second time, checking to see if the second keying and the punched data were the same (known as
two pass verification
Two-pass verification, also called double data entry, is a data entry quality control method that was originally employed when data records were entered onto sequential 80-column Hollerith cards with a keypunch. In the first pass through a set of ...
). There was a great demand for keypunch operators, usually women, who worked full-time on keypunch and verifier machines, often in large keypunch departments with dozens or hundreds of other operators, all performing
data input {{Short description, Data provided to a program or process
In computer science, the general meaning of input is to provide or give something to the computer, in other words, when a computer or device is receiving a command or signal from outer sour ...
.
In the 1950s,
Remington Rand
Remington Rand was an early American business machine manufacturer, originally a typewriter manufacturer and in a later incarnation the manufacturer of the UNIVAC line of mainframe computers. Formed in 1927 following a merger, Remington Rand w ...
introduced the
UNITYPER The UNITYPER was an input device for the UNIVAC I computer manufactured by Remington Rand, which went on sale in mid-1951 but was not in operation until June 1952. It was an early direct data entry system. The UNITYPER accepted user inputs on a ke ...
, which enabled
data entry
Data entry is the process of digitizing data by entering it into a computer system for organization and management purposes. It is a person-based process and is "one of the important basic" tasks needed when no machine-readable version of the inf ...
directly to
magnetic tape
Magnetic tape is a medium for magnetic storage made of a thin, magnetizable coating on a long, narrow strip of plastic film. It was developed in Germany in 1928, based on the earlier magnetic wire recording from Denmark. Devices that use magne ...
for
UNIVAC
UNIVAC (Universal Automatic Computer) was a line of electronic digital stored-program computers starting with the products of the Eckert–Mauchly Computer Corporation. Later the name was applied to a division of the Remington Rand company an ...
systems.
Mohawk Data Sciences
Mohawk Data Sciences Corporation (MDS) was an early computer hardware company, started by former Univac engineers in 1964;
by 1985 they were struggling to sell-off part of their company.
History
The company was founded in Herkimer, New York, by G ...
subsequently produced an improved magnetic tape encoder in 1965, which was somewhat successfully marketed as a keypunch replacement. The rise of microprocessors and inexpensive computer terminals led to the development of additional key-to-tape and key-to-disk systems from smaller companies such as
Inforex and
Pertec.
Keypunches and punched cards were still commonly used for both data and program entry through the 1970s but were rapidly made obsolete by changes in the entry paradigm and by the availability of inexpensive CRT
computer terminal
A computer terminal is an electronic or electromechanical hardware device that can be used for entering data into, and transcribing data from, a computer or a computing system. The teletype was an example of an early-day hard-copy terminal and ...
s. Eliminating the step of transferring punched cards to tape or disk (with the added benefit of saving the cost of the cards themselves) allowed for improved checking and correction during the entry process. The development of
video display terminal
A computer terminal is an electronic or electromechanical hardware device that can be used for entering data into, and transcribing data from, a computer or a computing system. The teletype was an example of an early-day hard-copy terminal a ...
s, interactive
timeshared systems and, later,
personal computer
A personal computer (PC) is a multi-purpose microcomputer whose size, capabilities, and price make it feasible for individual use. Personal computers are intended to be operated directly by an end user, rather than by a computer expert or tec ...
s allowed those who originated the data or program to enter it directly instead of writing it on forms to be entered by keypunch operators.
Stamping Jacquard cards, 1801 through 1890
Jacquard Jacquard may refer to:
People
* Albert Jacquard (1925-2013), French geneticist and essayist
* Joseph Marie Jacquard (1752-1834), French weaver and inventor of the Jacquard loom
* Robert Jacquard (born 1958), American politician
Other uses
* A M Ja ...
cards were said to be ''stamped'' or ''cut'' (not punched). The first Jacquard cards were stamped by hand, sometimes using a guide plate. An improvement was to place the card between two perforated metal plates (hinged together), insert punches according to the desired pattern, then pass the assembly through a press to cut the card. These essentially manual processes were replaced by machines; piano machines (the name taken from the keys), operated by keyboards and comparable in function to unit record keypunches, becoming the most common.
[
]
Hollerith and IBM keypunches, 1890 through 1930s
Herman Hollerith
Herman Hollerith (February 29, 1860 – November 17, 1929) was a German-American statistician, inventor, and businessman who developed an electromechanical tabulating machine for punched cards to assist in summarizing information and, later, i ...
's first device for punching cards from the 1890s was ''...any ordinary ticket punch, cutting a round hole 3/16 of an inch in diameter''. Use of such a punch was facilitated by placing the holes to be used near the edges of the card. Hollerith soon developed a more accurate and simpler to use Keyboard Punch, using a pantograph
A pantograph (, from their original use for copying writing) is a mechanical linkage connected in a manner based on parallelograms so that the movement of one pen, in tracing an image, produces identical movements in a second pen. If a line dr ...
to link a punch mechanism to a guide pointer that an operator would place over the appropriate mark in a 12 by 20 matrix to line up a manual punch over the correct hole in one of 20 columns.
In 1901 Hollerith patented a mechanism where an operator pressed one of 12 keys to punch a hole, with the card automatically advancing to the next column. This first-generation Type 001 keypunch used 45 columns and round holes. In 1923 The Tabulating Machine Company introduced the first electric keypunch, the Type 011 Electric Keypunch, a similar looking device where each key closed an electrical contact that activated a solenoid
upright=1.20, An illustration of a solenoid
upright=1.20, Magnetic field created by a seven-loop solenoid (cross-sectional view) described using field lines
A solenoid () is a type of electromagnet formed by a helix, helical coil of wire whose ...
which punched the hole. The 80 column punched card format was introduced in 1928. Later Hollerith keypunches included the Type 016 Motor-Driven Electric Duplicating Keypunch (1929), the Type 31 Alphabetical Duplicating Punch[Type 31 Alphabetical Duplicating Punch]
/ref> (1933), and the Type 32 Alphabetical Printing Punch
/ref> (1933).
"Alphabetical duplicating keypunches recorded alphabetic information in tabulating cards so that complete words and names, together with numerical data, could be later printed by an alphabetical accounting machine. The Type 31 Alphabetical Duplicating Punch[ was introduced by IBM in 1933, and it automatically ejected one card and fed another in 0.65 second. These machines were equipped with separate alphabetical and numerical keyboards. The alphabetical keyboard was similar to a conventional manual typewriter][ except that the shift, tab, backspace and character keys were eliminated, and a skip, release, stacker and '1' key were provided." – IBM Archives]
Post-WW II IBM keypunches and verifiers for 80-column cards
Most IBM keypunch and verifiers used a common electrical/mechanical design in their keyboards to encode the mechanical keystrokes. As a key was depressed, a link on the keystem tripped a corresponding set of bails at the top of the keyboard assembly. The bails in turn made (closed) contacts to encode the characters electrically. As each key stroke was detected by the machine, a feed-back circuit energized a pair of magnets with a bail which restored the keystem mechanically, reset the bails performing the electrical encoding, and gave the "feel" and sound to the operator of a completed action. Each machine had a tendency to develop a "feel" of its own based on several variables such as the amount of wear, dirt, and clearance of the bail contacts within the keyboard, as well as factors in the base machine. The keyboards, however, had no provision for adjusting the "feel" other than the correct adjustment of the contacts on the restore bail contacts and the encoding bail contacts. Special function keys such as shift, release, duplication and others, had only electrical contacts under their stems, with no mechanical linkage to the bail assembly for encoding.
IBM keypunches such as the 024, 026, and 029 provided for the mounting of a program card that controlled various functions, such as tabbing and automatic duplication of fields from the previous card. The later 129 used electronic circuit cards to store simple programs written by the keypunch operator.
IBM 024, 026 Card Punches
The IBM 024 Card Punch and IBM 026 Printing Card Punch were announced in 1949. They were almost identical, with the exception of the printing mechanism. The heart of the 024 and 026 keypunches was a set of twelve precision punches, one per card row, each with an actuator of relatively high power. Punch cards were stepped across the punch one column at a time, and the appropriate punches were activated to create the holes, resulting in a distinctive "chunk, chunk" sound as columns were punched. Both machines could process 51-, 60-, 66-, and 80-column cards.
The 026 could print the punched character above each column. By 1964 there were ten versions with slightly different character sets. The scientific versions printed parentheses, equal sign and plus sign in place of four less frequently used characters in the commercial character sets.
Logic consisted of diode
A diode is a two-terminal electronic component that conducts current primarily in one direction (asymmetric conductance); it has low (ideally zero) resistance in one direction, and high (ideally infinite) resistance in the other.
A diode ...
s, 25L6 vacuum tube
A vacuum tube, electron tube, valve (British usage), or tube (North America), is a device that controls electric current flow in a high vacuum between electrodes to which an electric voltage, potential difference has been applied.
The type kn ...
s and relay
A relay
Electromechanical relay schematic showing a control coil, four pairs of normally open and one pair of normally closed contacts
An automotive-style miniature relay with the dust cover taken off
A relay is an electrically operated switch ...
s. The tube circuits used 150VDC, but this voltage was only used to operate the punch-clutch magnet. Most other circuits used 48VDC.
Characters were printed using a 5 × 7 dot matrix
A dot matrix is a 2-dimensional patterned array, used to represent characters, symbols and images. Most types of modern technology use dot matrices for display of information, including mobile phones, televisions, and printers. The system is al ...
array of wires; the device from which it derived the shape of the character was a metal plate, called the "code plate," with space for 1960 pins (35 pins times 56 printable characters). If the dot was not to be printed in a given character, the pin was machined off. By correctly positioning the plate and pressing it against one end of the array of printing wires, only the correct wires were pressed against the ribbon
A ribbon or riband is a thin band of material, typically cloth but also plastic or sometimes metal, used primarily as decorative binding and tying. Cloth ribbons are made of natural materials such as silk, cotton, and jute and of synthetic mater ...
and then the punched card. (This printer mechanism was generally considered by IBM Customer Engineers to be difficult to repair. One of the most common problems was wires breaking in the tightly curved narrow tube between the code plate and the ribbon—extracting the fragments and replacing the bundle of 35 wires was very tedious). The printing mechanism was prone to be damaged if a user attempted to duplicate "binary" cards with non-standard punch patterns. These could cause the code-plate positioning mechanism to try to shift the plate beyond its intended range of motion, sometimes causing damage. Turning off printing did not actually prevent the damage, as many people assumed, because the code-plate mechanism remained engaged with the punch unit and shifted the code plate. Turning off printing only suppressed pressing the printing pins into the ribbon and card.
Raymond Loewy, industrial designer of "streamlined" motifs who also designed railway passenger cars of the 1930s and 1940s, did the award-winning external design of the 026/024 Card Punches for IBM. Their heavy steel construction and rounded corners
photos
indeed echo the industrial Art Deco
Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...
style.
IBM 056 Card Verifier
The IBM 056 was the verifier companion to the 024 Card Punch and 026 Printing Card Punch. The verifier was similar to the 026 keypunch except for a red error lens in the machine cover lower center. The verifier operator entered exactly the same data as the keypunch operator and the verifier machine then checked to see if the punched data matched. Successfully verified cards had a small notch punched on the right hand edge.
The IBM 056 verifier used most of the same mechanical and electrical components as the 024/026 keypunches with the exception of the punch unit and print head. The punch unit had sensing pins in place of the punches. The holes sensed or not sensed would trip a contact bail when the configuration was other than that entered by the verifier operator. This stopped the forward motion of the card, and presented a red error light on the machine cover. The notching mechanism was located in the area occupied by the print mechanism on a 026 printing keypunch. It had a solenoid which drove the notching mechanism, and another that selected the top notch punch or end of card punch.
When an operator keying data to be verified encountered an error, the operator was given a second and third try to re-enter the data that was supposed to be in the field. If the third try was incorrect an error notch was put on the top of the card over the column with the error and the "OK" punch at the end of the card was not enabled. The data on the card could actually be correct, since the verifier operator was just as likely to make an error as the keypunch operator. However, with three tries, the operator was less likely to repeatedly make the same error. Some verifier operators were able to guess the error on the card created by the previous keypunch operator, defeating the purpose of the verify procedure, and thus some machines were altered to allow only one entry and error notched on the second try.
Cards with error notches were re-punched (using an 024 or 026) usually by "duplicating" up to the column in error, then entering the correct data. The duplicating function was accomplished by feeding the card through the punch station without punching it. At the next station sensing pins read the holes present in the original card and transferred the data to the punching station and onto a blank card. Columns with errors were corrected instead of being duplicated. The corrected card was then verified to check the data again and be "OK notched".
Typewriter Card Punches
The first combination of card punch and typewriter, permitting selected text to be typed and punched, was developed by the Powers company in 1925. The IBM 824 Typewriter Card Punch was an IBM 024 where the 024 keyboard was replaced by an IBM electric typewriter. Similarly, the IBM 826 used an IBM 026 Keypunch.
IBM 029 Card Punch
Introduced with System/360 in 1964, the 029 had new character codes for parentheses, equal and plus as well as other new symbols used in the EBCDIC
Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code (EBCDIC; ) is an eight- bit character encoding used mainly on IBM mainframe and IBM midrange computer operating systems. It descended from the code used with punched cards and the corresponding ...
code. The IBM 029 was mechanically similar to the IBM 026 and printed the punched character on the top of the card using the same kind of mechanism as the 026, although it used a larger code plate with 2240 printing-pin sites due to the larger set of characters in EBCDIC.
The 029's logic consisted of wire contact relays on later models and reed relays and diode
A diode is a two-terminal electronic component that conducts current primarily in one direction (asymmetric conductance); it has low (ideally zero) resistance in one direction, and high (ideally infinite) resistance in the other.
A diode ...
s on SMS cards for early ones. The more "advanced" reed relays used at first proved to be less reliable than expected, causing IBM to revert to the older-style wire-contact relay-based design. All ran on 48 volts DC, and did not require the vacuum tubes that were used in the 024/026. A common additional feature made available (at additional cost) was the leading zeros feature (termed "Left-Zero"). This was delivered by an additional set of four SMS cards. The field was programmed for leading zeros using the program card. If it was (say) a six digit field, the operator only had to key in the actual value (for example 73). The feature would then fill the field by punching the leading four zeros, followed by the 73, in effect right justifying the field, thus: 000073.
IBM 5924 Key Punch
The IBM 5924 Key Punch was the 029 model T01 attached with a special keyboard in IBM's 1971 announcement of the IBM Kanji System, the keypunch operator's left hand selecting one of 15 shift keys and the right hand selecting one of 240 Kanji characters for that shift. It introduced the computer processing of Chinese
Chinese can refer to:
* Something related to China
* Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity
**''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation
** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...
, Japanese
Japanese may refer to:
* Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia
* Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan
* Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture
** Japanese diaspor ...
and Korean language
Korean ( South Korean: , ''hangugeo''; North Korean: , ''chosŏnmal'') is the native language for about 80 million people, mostly of Korean descent. It is the official and national language of both North Korea and South Korea (geographic ...
s that typically used large character sets
Character encoding is the process of assigning numbers to graphical characters, especially the written characters of human language, allowing them to be stored, transmitted, and transformed using digital computers. The numerical values that ...
over 10,000 characters.
IBM 059 Card Verifier
The IBM 059 was the Verifier companion to the IBM 029 Card Punch. In design, it differed radically from the earlier 056 verifier, in that it used optical sensing of card holes instead of mechanical sensing pins. This made the 059 much quieter than the 056 (which was often louder than the 024 keypunch). The optical sensors used a single light source, which was distributed to various sites within the machine via fiber-optic lightpipes. Despite the technology, the basic mode of operation remained essentially the same as with the 056.
Ironically, not all verifier operators appreciated the noise reduction. When used in a room also containing 029 keypunch machines, the verifier operators sometimes missed the auditory feedback provided by the loud "thunk" noise emitted by the older 056. Some were known to compensate by hitting the keys harder, sometimes actually wearing out keyboard parts.
IBM 129 Card Data Recorder
Introduced with the System/370
The IBM System/370 (S/370) is a model range of IBM mainframe computers announced on June 30, 1970, as the successors to the System/360 family. The series mostly maintains backward compatibility with the S/360, allowing an easy migration path ...
in 1971, the IBM 129 was capable of punching, verifying, and use as an auxiliary, on line, 80 column card reader/punch for some computers. A switch on the keyboard console provided the ability to toggle between the punch and verify modes.
The transistorized IBM 129 Card Data Recorder's primary advantage over other IBM keypunches was that it featured an electronic 80-column buffer to hold the card image. When using earlier IBM keypunches, a keystroke error required the card to be ejected by pressing the Release and Register keys, the error corrected by pressing the Duplicate key until the error column was reached, typing the correct data for the rest of that card, then pressing the Release key and manually removing the bad card from the output card stacker before it was placed in the deck (this required some practice, but quickly became an automatic action that you no longer had to think about). With the 129, a keystroke error could be erased by pressing the Backspace key and re-keyed. The entire 80-column card was punched automatically, as fast as the mechanism could go, when the Release key was pressed.
Logic was in SLT modules on a swing out, wire-wrapped backplane.
A secondary advantage of the 129 was that the speed of the keying operation was not limited by punching each column at the time of the keystroke.
The 129 could store six programs in its memory, selectable by a rotary switch. Unlike earlier keypunch machines, the program cards were read into memory via the regular card-feed path, and were not wrapped around a "program drum".
Thanks to its use of electronic memory, the 129 did not have a separate "read station" with a pin-sense unit to enable duplication of data from one card to the next. Instead, duplication was based on the stored image of the previous card. Cards could also be "read-in" through an optical read unit integrated into the punch station.
Program card
IBM 024, 026, and 029 keypunches and their companion verifiers, the 056 and 059, could be programmed to a limited extent using a ''Program Card'', also known as a drum card. The keypunch or verifier could be programmed to automatically advance to the beginning of each field, default to certain character types within the field, duplicate a field from the previous card, and so on. Program cards were an improvement over the ''Skip Bar'' used in some earlier keypunches.
The program was encoded on a punched card and could be prepared on any keypunch (a keypunch would operate even if no program card was in place). The program card was wrapped around the program drum, and clamped in place. The drum rotated as the card being punched moved through the punching mechanism. The holes in the program card were sensed by an array of starwheels that would cause levers to rise and fall as the holes in the program card passed beneath the starwheels, activating electrical contacts. The program was encoded in the top six rows 2,11,0,1,2,3 If the optional ''Second Program'' feature was installed, another program could be encoded in the bottom six rows ,5,6,7,8,9 A switch let the operator select which program to use. The central cover on the keypunch could be tilted open toward the operator and a locking lever released, allowing the program drum to be removed and replaced.
The program card was punched with characters that controlled its function as follows:
Many programming languages, such as FORTRAN, RPG, and the IBM Assembler
Assembler may refer to:
Arts and media
* Nobukazu Takemura, avant-garde electronic musician, stage name Assembler
* Assemblers, a fictional race in the ''Star Wars'' universe
* Assemblers, an alternative name of the superhero group Champions of ...
, coded operations in specific card columns, such as 1, 10, 16, 36, and 72. The program card for such a setup might be coded as:
1.......10........20........30........40........50........60........70........80
1AAAAAAAA1AAAAA1AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA1AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA &&&&&&&&
In this example, if the keypunch operator typed a few characters at the beginning of the card and then pressed the skip key, the keypunch would tab to column 10. When a program code of blank is followed by "Field Definition" (12) (or (4) for program 2), it defines a "Numeric Shift" field. In the example above, columns 72-80 are defined in the program as a Numeric Shift field. In practice, this definition would likely be used for punching a special symbol as a "continuation character" in column 72, and then columns 73-80 could either be punched with a card sequence number or the card could be released at that point, if no further typing was required.
Note: "Field Definition" (12) and "Alphabetic Shift" (1) prints as an A.
If program 2 codes were punched, invalid characters could be generated that the printer did not know how to print, some of which could even damage the printer.
Program cards could automate certain tasks, such as "gang punching", the insertion of a constant field into each card of a deck of cards. For amusement, program cards could even be set up to play music by gang-punching "noisy" characters (characters represented by many holes, usually special characters) and "quiet" numbers and letters in rhythmic patterns.
IBM 5496 Data Recorder for 96 column cards
In 1969, IBM introduced the System/3
The IBM System/3 was an IBM midrange computer introduced in 1969, and marketed until 1985. It was produced by IBM Rochester in Minnesota as a low-end business computer aimed at smaller organizations that still used IBM 1400 series computers or u ...
family of low-end business computers which featured a new, smaller-sized, 96 column punched card. The IBM 5496 Data Recorder, a keypunch with print and verify functions, and IBM 5486 Card Sorter were made for these 96-column cards.
Powers, Remington Rand (UNIVAC) keypunches
Beginning around 1906, an employee of the United States Census Bureau
The United States Census Bureau (USCB), officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the U.S. Federal Statistical System, responsible for producing data about the American people and economy. The Census Bureau is part of the ...
, James Powers, developed the ''Powers Keypunch'', which was specific to the census application and had 240 keys. In 1911, Powers formed Powers Accounting Machine Company
The Powers Accounting Machine was an information processing device developed in the early 20th century for the U.S. Census Bureau. It was then produced and marketed by the Powers Accounting Machine Company, an information technology company founded ...
. That company was taken over by Remington Rand
Remington Rand was an early American business machine manufacturer, originally a typewriter manufacturer and in a later incarnation the manufacturer of the UNIVAC line of mainframe computers. Formed in 1927 following a merger, Remington Rand w ...
in 1927. Remington Rand's UNIVAC
UNIVAC (Universal Automatic Computer) was a line of electronic digital stored-program computers starting with the products of the Eckert–Mauchly Computer Corporation. Later the name was applied to a division of the Remington Rand company an ...
division made keypunches for their 90-column cards and similar machines for the IBM 80-column card. Their 90-column keypunches used a mechanical system developed by Remington Rand to avoid IBM patent issues (long before the acquisition of Eckert–Mauchly Computer Corporation
The Eckert–Mauchly Computer Corporation (EMCC) (March 1946 – 1950) was founded by J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly. It was incorporated on December 22, 1947. After building the ENIAC at the University of Pennsylvania, Eckert and ...
). UNIVAC keypunches stored the sequence of characters for an entire card, then punched all its holes in a single pass, which allowed for corrections instead of wasting a card in case of error.
Remington Rand keypunches included: UNIVAC Card Code Punch Type 306-5, 90 Column Alphabetical (Types 306-2, 306-3), 90 Column Numerical (Types 204-2, 204-3), Portable Electric Punch Type 202, Spot Punch Type 301, and the Automatic Verifying Machine Type 313.
The Type 306-2 provided for verification; the cards were passed through the keypunch a second time and keyed again. ''The verify-punching of the same cards in the same sequence ... results in the elongation of perforations for correct information. Round perforations indicate incorrect information. Complete and rapid detection of errors is performed mechanically by the Automatic Verifying Machine''
The UNIVAC 1710 Verifying Interpreting Punch was introduced in 1969.
Keypunch as a verb
Saying that something would be keypunched (to keypunch as a verb), now that the actual device called a keypunch has become obsolete, refers to data entry
Data entry is the process of digitizing data by entering it into a computer system for organization and management purposes. It is a person-based process and is "one of the important basic" tasks needed when no machine-readable version of the inf ...
.
This use of the verb has replaced the former process, described
as "When a key is struck on a keypunch, it prints the character on the top of the card
but also punches a series of holes that the computer"
can interpret."
Transition to direct data entry
In the 1950s, Remington Rand
Remington Rand was an early American business machine manufacturer, originally a typewriter manufacturer and in a later incarnation the manufacturer of the UNIVAC line of mainframe computers. Formed in 1927 following a merger, Remington Rand w ...
introduced the UNITYPER The UNITYPER was an input device for the UNIVAC I computer manufactured by Remington Rand, which went on sale in mid-1951 but was not in operation until June 1952. It was an early direct data entry system. The UNITYPER accepted user inputs on a ke ...
, which enabled data entry
Data entry is the process of digitizing data by entering it into a computer system for organization and management purposes. It is a person-based process and is "one of the important basic" tasks needed when no machine-readable version of the inf ...
directly to magnetic tape
Magnetic tape is a medium for magnetic storage made of a thin, magnetizable coating on a long, narrow strip of plastic film. It was developed in Germany in 1928, based on the earlier magnetic wire recording from Denmark. Devices that use magne ...
for UNIVAC
UNIVAC (Universal Automatic Computer) was a line of electronic digital stored-program computers starting with the products of the Eckert–Mauchly Computer Corporation. Later the name was applied to a division of the Remington Rand company an ...
systems. Mohawk Data Sciences
Mohawk Data Sciences Corporation (MDS) was an early computer hardware company, started by former Univac engineers in 1964;
by 1985 they were struggling to sell-off part of their company.
History
The company was founded in Herkimer, New York, by G ...
subsequently produced an improved magnetic tape encoder in 1965, which was somewhat successfully marketed as a keypunch replacement. In the mid-1970s, the rise of microprocessors and inexpensive computer terminals led to the development of additional key-to-tape and key-to-disk systems from smaller companies such as Inforex and Pertec.
Punched cards were still commonly used for data entry and programming until the mid-1980s. However, eliminating the step of transferring punched cards to tape or disk (with the added benefit of saving the cost of the cards themselves) allowed for improved checking and correction during the data entry process. The development of video display terminal
A computer terminal is an electronic or electromechanical hardware device that can be used for entering data into, and transcribing data from, a computer or a computing system. The teletype was an example of an early-day hard-copy terminal a ...
s, interactive timeshared systems and, later, personal computer
A personal computer (PC) is a multi-purpose microcomputer whose size, capabilities, and price make it feasible for individual use. Personal computers are intended to be operated directly by an end user, rather than by a computer expert or tec ...
s allowed workers who originated the data to enter it directly instead of writing it on forms to be entered by data entry clerk
A data entry clerk, also known as data preparation and control operator, data registration and control operator, and data preparation and registration operator, is a member of staff employed to enter or update data into a computer system. Data is o ...
s.
See also
* Punched card
A punched card (also punch card or punched-card) is a piece of stiff paper that holds digital data represented by the presence or absence of holes in predefined positions. Punched cards were once common in data processing applications or to di ...
* Punched card input/output
A computer punched card reader or just computer card reader is a computer input device used to read computer programs in either source or executable form and data from punched cards. A computer card punch is a computer output device that punches ...
* Hollerith code
A punched card (also punch card or punched-card) is a piece of stiff paper that holds digital data represented by the presence or absence of holes in predefined positions. Punched cards were once common in data processing applications or to ...
* Unit record equipment
Starting at the end of the nineteenth century, well before the advent of electronic computers, data processing was performed using electromechanical machines collectively referred to as unit record equipment, electric accounting machines (EAM) o ...
* Computer programming in the punched card era
From the invention of computer programming languages up to the mid-1970s, most computer programmers created, edited and stored their programs line by line on punch cards.
Punched cards
A punched card is a flexible write-once medium that encode ...
* List of IBM products
The following is a partial list of products, services, and subsidiaries of International Business Machines (IBM) Corporation and its predecessor corporations, beginning in the 1890s.
This list is eclectic; it includes, for example, the ''AN/FS ...
* Chad (paper)
Chad refers to fragments sometimes created when holes are made in a paper, card or similar synthetic materials, such as computer punched tape or punched cards. The word "chad" has been used both as a mass noun (as in "a pile of chad") and ...
References
Further reading
Columbia University Computing History: IBM Key Punches
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External links
IBM Punched Card Accounting Machines (1955)
{{IBM
American inventions
Punched card
IBM keypunches
UNIVAC unit record equipment
Unit record equipment