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, also known as punch cards, dated to the late 18th and early 19th centuries when they were used to “program” cloth-making machinery and looms.

Writing a program began with a paper tablet of coding forms. Each page of the tablet had about fifty lines on it, and each line on the form would eventually be converted into a punched card and stowed …

Jun 8, 2012 · In a typical case you wrote the code by hand, then punched it onto cards. Each card holds one line of code (up to 80 columns). You took the card deck to be executed. Depending on backlog, …

Aug 10, 2025 · Common languages used during the punched card era were COBOL, ALGOL and Assembly Languages. The card shown here has a Fortran statement punched onto it. Think of …

How did punch card systems work? Professor Brailsford delves further into the era of mainframe computing with this hands-on look at punch cards.

Aug 12, 2025 · Punch card programming was used well into the 1980s, a mere 45 years ago. Even if you’ve used punch cards to program, it’s still pretty insane to think that this method was essentially …

Jun 25, 2025 · Because each card only holds so much data, writing a program using punch cards (one card for each line of code) requires a stack of punched cards. To load the program or read punch …

In this article, we’ll take a journey through time to explore the world of punch cards and uncover the timeless principles they embody. We’ll see how these principles relate to contemporary coding …

Nov 9, 2022 · So how do you punch a card? Although there were some schemes for manually punching precut cards, those were mostly used for niche applications like voting, small schools with no …