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Jump to IBM 80-column punched card format and character codes - A punched card or punch card is a piece of stiff paper that can be used to contain digital data represented by the presence or absence of holes in predefined positions. Digital data can be used for data processing applications or, in earlier examples, used to directly control automated machinery.
It turned out to be one of IBM's most important technological innovations, propelling the company to the forefront of data processing. For almost four decades, it was the major medium for storing, sorting and reporting data processed first through punched card equipment and later computers.
I learned to create my own punch cards which were basically like cards of a specific size and uniform that had 80 columns of information. Your programs you wrote designated what the numbers or characters on each line meant which might be literally any information you wanted to process in various kinds of ways. For example, a person and their address and phone number might exist on a single punch card for a business. So, if you wanted to address an envelope or letter to them you might bring out that particular punch card or 1000 people or 10000 addresses and then print a letter each addressed to 10,000 people one on each punch card if you wanted to through automation then in the 1960s.
So, for example, the first mainframe I worked with was an IBM 1620 I believe then later an IBM 360. If I remember correctly (it's been at least 50 years since then) you put your program on punch cards and fed that into the computer. Then later after you got your program into memory while the mainframe was on, then you ran your data punch cards in various ways through the computer to process various mathematical computations or to print out spreadsheets of various kinds. There were also things that processed punched cards outside of the mainframe then like Sorters, and reproducers and there were even Accounting machines that could be viewed as something before or during mainframe computers. They often had wiring boards to make them function in different kinds of ways in processing cards too. The mainframe was a breakthrough on various levels because a mainframe can be very "Multidimensional" in what it is capable of.
Also, a home computer laptop that you might own now is hundreds of times better than the best mainframe in 1966 by the way. And along with the Internet you have access to more different kinds of information than we even dreamed about in 1966 then.
This is my favorite statement since around 2008 when the first smartphone was sold publicly: "A child with a smartphone has access to more information (anywhere on earth) than President Clinton did as president of the United States.
So, there has been this incredible "Explosion" of information since 2008 on earth.
However, there was a saying we had in the 1960s working in the computer world which was "Garbage in Garbage out" which means basically that "if your program and data is garbage your output will be garbage too".
So, we have a lot of really really bogus information out there too the kind that Putin puts out on Facebook (without telling anyone who is doing this)
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