myfl.uk · the card punch

The card punch.

This is a form, and forms are for sending messages. This one is not.

Type up to 80 characters and each one is punched onto a card in the Hollerith code, the encoding used on IBM 80-column cards from 1928 until terminals took over in the mid-1980s. The holes appear as you type.

When you punch the card it is numbered and kept in this browser. It is not sent anywhere. There is no recipient, and no copy of your message exists on any server.

The Send button is below because forms have send buttons. Pressing it sends nothing.

Message to punch
columns: 0 / 80

Cards punched in this browser

Machine notes

Card80 columns, 12 rows, 187 × 83 mm (7⅜ × 3¼ in). IBM introduced the 80-column card in 1928; the 12 and 11 zone rows were added in 1930 so a column could carry a letter as well as a digit.

CodeThe 1969 ANSI Hollerith Punched Card Code, this machine’s subset. Letters carry one zone punch and one digit punch: A–I use zone 12, J–R use zone 11, S–Z use zone 0. Digits are a single punch in their own row. Space is blank. Punctuation is limited to . , − / & $ * %.

CaseThe keypunches had no lowercase, so neither does this machine. Lowercase letters are punched as capitals.

RefusalsCharacters outside the code are refused and their column is left blank. The counter tells you how many.

Do not fold, spindle or mutilate. The warning was printed on cards that travelled as documents. Yours does not travel.

The tray lives in this browser and nowhere else; emptying it deletes your cards. Test hooks for the curious: ?card=HELLO renders a punched card without saving anything, ?reset=1 empties the tray.