13 Facts About Hollerith cards

Hollerith cards founded the Tabulating Machine Company which was one of four companies that were amalgamated via stock acquisition to form a fifth company, Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company, later renamed International Business Machines Corporation .

In Nazi Germany, punched Hollerith cards were used for the censuses of various regions and other purposes .

The first card of a group of Hollerith cards, containing fixed or indicative information for that group, is known as a master card.

Hollerith cards was originally inspired by railroad tickets that let the conductor encode a rough description of the passenger:.

Continuous form Hollerith cards could be both pre-numbered and pre-punched for document control .

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One convention was to use columns 1 through 72 for data, and columns 73 through 80 to sequentially number the Hollerith cards, as shown in the picture above of a punched card for FORTRAN.

Such numbered Hollerith cards could be sorted by machine so that if a deck was dropped the sorting machine could be used to arrange it back in order.

Such "lace Hollerith cards" lacked structural strength, and would frequently buckle and jam inside the machine.

Long Hollerith cards were available with a scored stub on either end which, when torn off, left an 80 column card.

Stub Hollerith cards were used in applications requiring tags, labels, or carbon copies.

Aperture Hollerith cards have a cut-out hole on the right side of the punched card.

Aperture Hollerith cards are used for engineering drawings from all engineering disciplines.

Common example of the requests often printed on punched Hollerith cards which were to be individually handled, especially those intended for the public to use and return is "Do Not Fold, Spindle or Mutilate" .