punch card

American  

Or punchcard,

noun

1. a card having holes punched in specific positions and patterns so as to represent data to be stored or processed mechanically, electrically, or photoelectrically.

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Etymology

Origin of punch card

First recorded in 1940–45

Example Sentences

Cornell was an early adopter of mainframes and his professor mentors were moving from punch cards to mainframe batch processing.

From The Wall Street Journal

Store loyalty programs have evolved beyond simple punch cards.

From MarketWatch

Store loyalty programs used to be simple: You’d get a punch card at a local sub shop, buy eight sandwiches and get your ninth for free.

From MarketWatch

The numbers were stored on punch cards and loaded into massive computers, allowing the club to rank players.

From Seattle Times

Most of those mechanical calculators were eventually replaced by IBM punch card accounting machinery.

From Scientific American