punch card

Noun

punch card (plural punch cards)

1. A card that can have holes or notches cut in it, especially one for storing data, that can be sorted according to combinations of holes present or absent.
   1. (historical) Such a card, the size of a US dollar bill and having 80 columns of 12 rows, used in early mainframe computers.
      • Programming by typing C++ or Python yourself might eventually seem as ridiculous as issuing instructions in binary onto a punch card.2023 November 13, James Somers, “A Coder Considers the Waning Days of the Craft”, in The New Yorker, →ISSN
2. A card given to a customer and punched with a hole at each purchase, allowing a reward to be claimed when fully punched.