<P> While punched cards are now obsolete as a storage medium, as of 2012, some voting machines still use punched cards to record votes . </P> <P> Basile Bouchon developed the control of a loom by punched holes in paper tape in 1725 . The design was improved by his assistant Jean - Baptiste Falcon and Jacques Vaucanson (1740) Although these improvements controlled the patterns woven, they still required an assistant to operate the mechanism . In 1804 Joseph Marie Jacquard demonstrated a mechanism to automate loom operation . A number of punched cards were linked into a chain of any length . Each card held the instructions for shedding (raising and lowering the warp) and selecting the shuttle for a single pass . It is considered an important step in the history of computing hardware . </P> <P> Semyon Korsakov was reputedly the first to use the punched cards in informatics for information store and search . Korsakov announced his new method and machines in September 1832; rather than seeking patents, he offered the machines for public use . </P> <P> Charles Babbage proposed the use of "Number Cards", "pierced with certain holes and stand opposite levers connected with a set of figure wheels...advanced they push in those levers opposite to which there are no holes on the card and thus transfer that number" in his description of the Calculating Engine's Store . </P>

Who initiated the storage of information on punched cards