Having an understanding of the function obtained from the punch card leads to knowing the principle of what computer science was, training a machine to memorize a certain group of data.
This being its function, another of the objectives that prompted its creation was the need to reduce the use of people to perform a specific procedure. Through these principles, it has been possible to obtain, process and store information in a way accurate in a short period of time.
The birth of the punch card
Its first appearance is still debated to this day. However, the chronological order dates back to its invention around the year 1725 as a "large roll of perforated paper" which allowed check a loom of a company in France.
Based on this concept, several groups of engineers were tasked with improving the idea to apply it in their inventions a couple of years later.
To date, it is considered the first CD-ROM that could exist in history, as IBM developed its core operation to achieve this type of storage.
Thus, punch cards are recognized as a sheet of various sizes, the material of which is cardboard, which allows you to perform a series of perforations in binary code to store a specific type of information.
Herman Hollerith and his tabulators
This engineer was one of the founders of what is now known as IBM, who decided to use this type of cardboard to censor the US population.
To achieve this, a varied number of questions with two answers or probable data have been introduced into the sheet, the correct one is the one that has been punched inside. Once the punch card was obtained, it was placed in a container with mercury that had cables in its upper part.
When one of these cables found a hole in the sheet, they recorded the information provided in the mercury. In this way, punch cards were used for automatically upload a specific type of information.
Main Features
The core concept of the punch card is something that has evolved over the years as it gradually got better and better to what it is today. At that time, these little ones cardboard sheets they were distinguished from all the others by possessing specific characteristics.
According to the binary method, the type of response that was drilled was organized within a specific column. The number of columns varied based on the size of the card.
Furthermore, these blades were produced and distributed for a specific type of machine, so they could only work with it.
How did these punch cards work?
As you have read before, each perforated card was very resistant to the different types of holes that were drilled into it. These marks varied according to the shape of the pencil, that is, round, rectangular or oval. The IBM company proposed to identify them as "chip" or "chad".
Each of these holes was accompanied by "fields", which were nothing more than data with a variability of characters, which mainly contained words or numbers of large quantities. These fields were established in columns near the map, generally within its boundaries.
An important aspect of the sheets is that their corners had a specific type of cutout that allowed people to determine which deck it belonged to. When each machine finished using a punch card, it was saved, destroyed or discarded to avoid duplication of information.
From this point on, the knowledge and practical use of the punch card has allowed several companies to evolve its principle. Thanks to this, on your computer you have the possibility to process and store all types of data through magnetic and optical media, which are based on a method similar to those used in the nineteenth century.
