<P> In the late 1960s, IBM introduced a new, smaller, round - hole, 96 - column card format along with the IBM System / 3 computer . These cards have tiny (1 mm), circular holes, smaller than those in paper tape . Data is stored in 6 - bit BCD, with three rows of 32 characters each, or 8 - bit EBCDIC . In this format, each column of the top tiers are combined with two punch rows from the bottom tier to form an 8 - bit byte, and the middle tier is combined with two more punch rows, so that each card contains 64 bytes of 8 - bit - per - byte binary coded data . </P> <P> The Powers / Remington Rand card format was initially the same as Hollerith's; 45 columns and round holes . In 1930, Remington Rand leap - frogged IBM's 80 column format from 1928 by coding two characters in each of the 45 columns--producing what is now commonly called the 90 - column card . There are two sets of six rows across each card . The rows in each set are labeled 0, 1 / 2, 3 / 4, 5 / 6, 7 / 8 and 9 . The even numbers in a pair are formed by combining that punch with a 9 punch . Alphabetic and special characters use 3 or more punches . </P> <P> The Powers - Samas card formats began with 45 columns and round holes . Later 36, 40 and 65 column cards were provided . A 130 column card was also available - formed by dividing the card into two rows, each row with 65 columns and each character space with 5 punch positions . A 21 column card was comparable to the IBM Stub card . </P> <Ul> <Li> Mark sense (electrographic) cards, developed by Reynold B. Johnson at IBM, have printed ovals that could be marked with a special electrographic pencil . Cards would typically be punched with some initial information, such as the name and location of an inventory item . Information to be added, such as quantity of the item on hand, would be marked in the ovals . Card punches with an option to detect mark sense cards could then punch the corresponding information into the card . </Li> </Ul>

When was punched-card equipment used for the first time to process the british census