punch card

See also: punchcard

English

An 80-column 20th century punch card.

Alternative forms

• punchcard

Noun

punch card (plural punch cards)

1. A card that can have holes or notches cut in it, especially one for storing data, that can be sorted according to combinations of holes present or absent.
   1. (computing, historical) Such a card, the size of a US dollar bill and having 80 columns of 12 rows, used in early mainframe computers.
      • 2023 November 13, James Somers, “A Coder Considers the Waning Days of the Craft”, in The New Yorker‎^[1], →ISSN:

        Programming by typing C++ or Python yourself might eventually seem as ridiculous as issuing instructions in binary onto a punch card.

2. A card given to a customer and punched with a hole at each purchase, allowing a reward to be claimed when fully punched.

Usage notes

• Sometimes the blank card was called a punch card, and became a punched card only after holes had been punched in it.
• Also see punched tape and paper tape.

Synonyms

• (card with holes or notches): index card, punched card
• (card used in early mainframe computers): punched card, Hollerith card

Related terms

• multipunch

Translations

card with have holes or notches used for storing data

• Bulgarian: перфокарта f (perfokarta)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 打孔卡 (dǎkǒngkǎ)

• Czech: děrný štítek m
• Danish: hulkort n
• Dutch: ponskaart (nl)
• Finnish: reikäkortti (fi)
• French: carte perforée (fr) f
• German: Lochkarte (de) f
• Hungarian: lyukkártya (hu)
• Icelandic: gataspjald n
• Irish: tollchárta m
• Italian: scheda perforata f
• Japanese: パンチカード (panchi kādo)
• Portuguese: cartão perfurado m
• Romanian: cartelă perforată (ro) f
• Russian: перфока́рта (ru) f (perfokárta)
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: бу̑шена̄ ка̀ртица f

  Roman: bȗšenā kàrtica f

• Swedish: hålkort (sv) n

Anagrams

• card punch, cardpunch