exxos's Atari, Amiga & retro forum

Punched cards in storage at a U.S. Federal records center in 1959. All the data visible here could fit on a single flash drive.

"Storage of IBM record cards at the Federal records center in Alexandria, Virginia, November 1959. Between 1950 and 1966 the records centers received millions of cubic feet of records, saving the federal government more than the total spent for the entire operation of the National Archives Records Service." Note: There are about 20 rows of pallets visible, each row is 15 pallets wide, pallets are stacked two high (at least). Each pallet contains 45 boxes of punched cards. Standard card boxes contained 2000 cards. Each card held up to 80 characters, for a total of about 4.3 billion characters of data in this storage facility - about the same as a 4GB flash drive.

One of the good things about miniaturisation.

I wonder how heavy all those cards were?

rubber_jonnie wrote: 11 Oct 2023 22:56 I wonder how heavy all those cards were?

Probably about the same as @Icky's giant panda printer :lol:

exxos wrote: 11 Oct 2023 22:59

rubber_jonnie wrote: 11 Oct 2023 22:56 I wonder how heavy all those cards were?

Probably about the same as @Icky's giant panda printer :lol:

Yes, quite similar I imagine :)

rubber_jonnie wrote: 11 Oct 2023 23:11

exxos wrote: 11 Oct 2023 22:59

Probably about the same as @Icky's giant panda printer :lol:

Yes, quite similar I imagine :)

Surprisingly the printer isn't as heavy as you think.

That stash of punch cards must have been a fire hazard.

Icky wrote: 12 Oct 2023 10:42

rubber_jonnie wrote: 11 Oct 2023 23:11

Yes, quite similar I imagine :)

That stash of punch cards must have been a fire hazard.

So a bit like @exxos chair then...

Fun fact: The size of a punch card was based on the size of the US dollar notes in circulation at the time. The census tabulating machines (Early IBM) needed punch cards to capture data and then be moved to a central location for counting. Using money 'transport boxes' for the millions of cards was deemed the easiest/cheapest solution - so that choice determined how much space was used in that Federal records centre!!

Unreal...! :)

Obligatory picture, delivery of an 'electronic brain'.