Card Formats
The early applications of punched cards all used specifically designed card layouts. It wasn't until around 1928 that punched cards and machines were made "general purpose". The rectangular, round, or oval bits of paper punched out are called chad (recently, chads) or chips (in IBM usage). Multi-character data, such as words or large numbers, were stored in adjacent card columns known as fields. A group of cards is called a deck. One upper corner of each card was usually cut so that cards not oriented correctly, or cards with different corner cuts, could be easily identified. Cards commonly had printing such that the row and column position of a hole could be identified. For some applications printing might have included fields, named and marked by vertical lines, logos, and more.
Read more about this topic: Punched Card
Famous quotes containing the word card:
“There is undoubtedly something religious about it: everyone believes that they are special, that they are chosen, that they have a special relation with fate. Here is the test: you turn over card after card to see in which way that is true. If you can defy the odds, you may be saved. And when you are cleaned out, the last penny gone, you are enlightened at last, free perhaps, exhilarated like an ascetic by the falling away of the material world.”
—Andrei Codrescu (b. 1947)