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The Lowly Punched Card Trivia Quiz

Do you remember when computers used punched cards and card readers as the primary form of input? Probably not. But, here are a few interesting facts about the lowly punched card.

A multiple-choice quiz by key_man. Estimated time: 5 mins.

Author
key_man

Time
5 mins

Type
Multiple Choice

Quiz #
292,177

Updated
Sep 21 24

# Qns
10

Difficulty
Average

Avg Score
6 / 10

Plays
754

Last 3 plays: Joepetz (10/10), Gumby1967 (10/10), jmac5cicada (9/10).

One at a Time - Single Page - Timed Game

Question 1 of 10

1. For what was the stiff format punched card first used? Hint

Playing tunes on American fairground organs (19th century)

In China to control water clocks (325 A.D.)

Control Charles Babbage's mechanical calculator (early 19th century)

Controlling French weaving looms (early 18th century)

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Question 2 of 10

2. The modern punched card (now pretty much obsolete), similar to what became the mainstay of computing input, was developed in 1890. What was it developed to support? Hint

Record data about soldiers in the Boer War

Record data for the US Census

Record data for the Library of Congress

Record data for U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

3. What was the name of the company whose focus was punched card driven data that Herman Hollerith formed in 1896 that through a series of mergers emerged as International Business Machines (IBM)? Hint

Tabulating Machine Company

International Time Recording Company

Computing Tabulating Recording Corporation (CTR)

Computing Scale Corporation

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Question 4 of 10

4. All computers use/used the same size and format of punched cards.

True

False

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Question 5 of 10

5. The punched card was so prevalent by the middle of the 20th century that we still quote a warning which appeared on many of the distributed cards came with the following warning: "Do not fold, _______ or mutilate" Hint

spindle

crease

desecrate

destroy

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Question 6 of 10

6. It was possible to punch out all the positions on an IBM 80 column card. Putting 12 rows of 80 columns of rectangular holes in a card 7 3/8" x 3 1/4" left a very flimsy "novelty" card that was not capable of passing through a card reader. What were these cards commonly called? Hint

holy cards

lace cards

labyrinth cards

confetti cards

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Question 7 of 10

7. The holes in cards might be round (as the ones in the 1890 Census cards were), oval, or rectangular. What were the bits of paper that were punched out called? Hint

confetti

chippings

punch-outs

chips, chad, or chads

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Question 8 of 10

8. The IBM card format with 80 columns and 12 rows was used with IBM mainframe computers since mid-1960s to encode data in which format? Hint

QWERTY keyboard emulation

ASCII

EBCDIC

960 Matrix Coding (12 x 80)

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Question 9 of 10

9. Although not technically punched, there were punched cards that allowed data entry by using a special electrographic pencil to shade designated ovals on the card. Special card reader sensed these markings and were programmed to punch out additional holes in the cards based on the shadings which could then be process by traditional unit record equipment. What were these cards called? Hint

Write-on cards

Data entry cards

Mark sense cards

Mark-up cards

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Question 10 of 10

10. Some events during the 2000 U.S. Presidential Election brought negative publicity to the use of punched cards as a voting medium. This was associated with the use of Votomatic type machines in which state? Hint

Florida

Mississippi

Texas

California

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Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. For what was the stiff format punched card first used?

Answer: Controlling French weaving looms (early 18th century)

Bouchon & Falcon replaced paper rolls that had been in use to control looms in France with this much more durable format. Babbage did work with punched cards and his mechanical calculators (pre-cursor to computers). Throughout the 19th and 20th century punched cards were used in many types of player-pianos and fairground organs.

2. The modern punched card (now pretty much obsolete), similar to what became the mainstay of computing input, was developed in 1890. What was it developed to support?

Answer: Record data for the US Census

It was Herman Hollerith who developed the technology to process data using punched cards for the US 1890 Census. The punched card often was referred to as a Hollerith card. These cards and Hollerith's sorting and tabulating machinery reduced census data compilation time from 8 years (for the 1880 census) to just one year (for the 1890 census).

Answer: Tabulating Machine Company

Hollerith formed the Tabulating Machine Company in 1896, and in 1911 it merged with the International Time Recording Company, the Computing Scale Corporation, and Bundy Manufacturing Company to form CTR. CTR later renamed itself (1924) to IBM which it had been using as its name in Canada since 1917.

4. All computers use/used the same size and format of punched cards.

Answer: False

There were many formats for punched cards, varying both in physical dimensions and in data encoding techniques (number of holes punched to represent a particular value). Even the shape and size of the holes punched in the cards varied depending upon the computer manufacturer. Univac used a 45-column 90 character card format, IBM had an 80-column 80-character format and a special version of this format had the right hand portion tear-off leaving a 51-column card used mostly in retail industry.

Answer: spindle

Although few folks were actually in danger of "spindling" the cards they received (often appliance warranty cards were computer punched cards to be returned). Spindling would have involved wrapping/mounting the card on a cylinder (as was done on keypunch control drums) which would have left the card bowed and likely jammed the equipment used to process the returned cards.

Answer: lace cards

These cards were frequently produced by operator as novelty items to give to tour guests at mainframe computer sites. "Lace Cards" were often pinned up at work desks as conversation pieces.

7. The holes in cards might be round (as the ones in the 1890 Census cards were), oval, or rectangular. What were the bits of paper that were punched out called?

Answer: chips, chad, or chads

While most of the industry called the resulting pile of paper bits "chad" (now frequently "chads"), IBM referred to their pile as "chips". Not really sure why. Interestingly, it appears that no computers used punched cards with square holes.

8. The IBM card format with 80 columns and 12 rows was used with IBM mainframe computers since mid-1960s to encode data in which format?

Answer: EBCDIC

IBM established this new "standard" for data encoding and by using some rows as "zone" indicators were able to represent a very large number of different values in a single column by "overpunching" (punching out more than one position in a column). ASCII is the common data encoding format used in most Personal Computers today. The other two are figments of my imagination.

Answer: Mark sense cards

The "mark sense" cards were developed at IBM by R.B. Johnson and often fixed information would be pre-punched on the card and the user then used the supplied pencil to provide additional data.

Answer: Florida

Basically a portable hole punch, these machines resulted in some ballots where the holes were incomplete punches, "fuzzy" around the edges, narrower than normal, etc. It was alleged that the hundreds of resulting spoiled ballots, primarily in Democratic areas, resulted in Bush defeating Gore in Florida.

Source: Author key_man

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