Two types of punched cards used to program the machine.

The input ( programs and data ) was to be provided to the machine via punched cards, a method being used at the time to direct mechanical looms such as the Jacquard loom.

Primary user input was decimal, via standard IBM 80 column punched cards and output was decimal, via a front panel display.

The encoding of data by discrete bits was used in the punched cards invented by Basile Bouchon and Jean-Baptiste Falcon ( 1732 ), developed by Joseph Marie Jacquard ( 1804 ), and later adopted by Semen Korsakov, Charles Babbage, Hermann Hollerith, and early computer manufacturers like IBM.

Interestingly, Vannevar Bush had written in 1936 of " bits of information " that could be stored on the punched cards used in the mechanical computers of that time.

Examples of non-volatile memory include read-only memory ( see ROM ), flash memory, most types of magnetic computer storage devices ( e. g. hard disks, floppy discs and magnetic tape ), optical discs, and early computer storage methods such as paper tape and punched cards.

As there were no users waiting at an interactive terminal, this was no problem: users handed in a deck of punched cards to an operator, and came back a few hours later for printed results.

In 1952 " file " was used in referring to information stored on punched cards.

Early storage devices such as delay lines, punched cards, paper tape, magnetic tape, and magnetic drums were used instead.

EBCDIC descended from the code used with punched cards and the corresponding six bit binary-coded decimal code used with most of IBM's computer peripherals of the late 1950s and early 1960s.

It was created to extend the existing binary-coded decimal ( BCD ) interchange code, or BCDIC, which itself was devised as an efficient means of encoding the two zone and number punches on punched cards into 6 bits.

Three passes were required to translate source code to the " IT " language, then to compile the IT statements into SOAP assembly language, and finally to produce the object program, which could then be loaded into the machine to run the program ( using punched cards for data input, and outputting results onto punched cards ).

In 1801, Joseph-Marie Jacquard developed a loom in which the pattern being woven was controlled by punched cards.

In 1833, Charles Babbage moved on from developing his difference engine ( for navigational calculations ) to a general purpose design, the Analytical Engine, which drew directly on Jacquard's punched cards for its program storage.

" After some initial trials with paper tape, he settled on punched cards ..." Hollerith came to use punched cards after observing how railroad conductors encoded personal characteristics of each passenger with punches on their tickets.

To process these punched cards he invented the tabulator, and the key punch machine.

Eckert's publication of Punched Card Methods in Scientific Computation in 1940, described punch card techniques sufficiently advanced to solve some differential equations or perform multiplication and division using floating point representations, all on punched cards and unit record machines.

Computer users, for example science and engineering students at universities, would submit their programming assignments to their local computer center in the form of a deck of punched cards, one card per program line.

Machines such as the Z3, the Atanasoff – Berry Computer, the Colossus computers, and the ENIAC were built by hand using circuits containing relays or valves ( vacuum tubes ), and often used punched cards or punched paper tape for input and as the main ( non-volatile ) storage medium.

Watson developed IBM's distinctive management style and corporate culture, and turned the company into a highly-effective selling organization, based largely around punched card tabulating machines.

* June 1 – The United States Census Bureau begins using Herman Hollerith's tabulating machine to tabulate census returns using punched card input, a landmark in the history of computing hardware.

With the assistance of Station CAST ( also known as COM 16, jointly commanded by Lts Rudolph Fabian and John Lietwiler ) in the Philippines, and the British Far East Combined Bureau in Singapore, and using an IBM punched card tabulating machine ( when available ), a successful attack was mounted against the JN-25 edition which came into effect on 1 December 1941.

* June 1-The United States Census Bureau begins using Herman Hollerith's tabulating machine to record census returns using punched card input, a landmark in the history of computing hardware.

Around 1933 Eckert proposed interconnecting punched card tabulating machines from IBM located in Columbia's Rutherford Laboratory to perform more than simple statistical calculations.

In January 1940, Eckert published Punched Card Methods in Scientific Computation, which solved the problem of predicting the orbits of the planets, using the IBM electric tabulating machines, based on the punched card.

IBM manufactured and marketed a variety of unit record machines for creating, sorting, and tabulating punched cards, even after expanding into computers in the late 1950s.

Unlike earlier IBM tabulating machines, which had one read brush per column at each read station, the 407 had 960 brushes at each station, one for each possible hole in a punched card.

The use of punched cards for recording and tabulating data was first proposed and used by Semen Korsakov in or about 1805.

These systems processed data on punched cards by running the cards through tabulating machines, the holes in the cards allowing electrical contact to activate relays and solenoids to keep a count.

Computing hardware evolved from machines that needed separate manual action to perform each arithmetic operation, to punched card machines, and then to stored-program computers.

Before text editors existed, computer text was punched into punched cards with keypunch machines.

An alternative to cards was punched paper tape, generated by teletype ( TTY ) machines ; these did need special characters to indicate ends of records.

Later machines came with libraries of support code on punched cards or magnetic tape, which would be linked to the user's program to assist in operations such as input and output.

The machines were driven by wiring instructions encoded onto punched cards, Mylar punched hole tape, and early micro computers.

The 650 was marketed to scientific and engineering users as well as users of existing IBM unit record equipment ( electro-mechanical punched card-processing machines ) upgrading from so-called Calculating Punches, like the IBM 604 model, to computers proper.

For many machines, a drum formed the main working memory of the machine, with data and programs being loaded on to or off the drum using media such as paper tape or punched cards.

For many mechanical data processing machines, such as the IBM punched card accounting machines, their calculating operations were directed by the use of a quick-swap control panel wired to route signals between module sockets.

NC machines used a series of numbers punched on paper tape or punched cards to control their motion.

AUTODIN, originally named " ComLogNet ", was a highly reliable service that operated at 99. 99 % availability, using mechanical punched card readers and tab machines to send and receive data over leased lines.

It was really just a means of synchronizing the playback of two machines so that the signal of the new shot could be " punched in " similar to with a reasonable chance at success.

Most machines were used for some type of order-entry / invoicing application, providing a hard-copy invoice and a punched card that could be processed further on some other system.

This was in 1949 and the guys who were working on it were foreseeing all sorts of machines being run by little boxes and punched cards.

* VEB Robotron-Büromaschinenwerk Sömmerda — personal computers, printers, electronic calculators ( Soemtron 220, 222, 224 ), invoicing machines ( EFA 380 ), punched card indexers and sorters ( Soemtron 432 ).

A February 2006 report from Election Data Services found that 124 counties reported still using punched card voting systems in the 2006 election ( down from 566 in 2000 ), similarly lever machines had decreased from 434 counties in 2000 to 119 in 2006 with New York state accounting for more than half the total number of counties still using lever machines.

Due to the somewhat confused nature of Chad's appointment and the continued references to ' chads ' – small pieces of ballot papers punched out by voters using voting machines – in the 2000 US Presidential Election it has been jocularly suggested that Chad is the patron saint of botched elections.

* BPS / 360 for machines with at least 8 KB of core memory and a punched card reader,