15 Dec
2015
15 Dec
'15
2:30 p.m.
From: Fred Cisin
Sent: Tuesday, December 15, 2015 9:12 AM
My father claimed that the use of round holes on
divergent cards was due
to an attempt by IBM to patent the shape of the hole in the cards.
http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/ibm100/us/en/icons/punchcard/
Prior to 1928, the holes in IBM's cards were round, too. The use of round
holes by Univac was an avoidance of paying royalties to IBM, which held a
patent on 80-column rectangularly punched cards.
Rich
Rich Alderson
Vintage Computing Sr. Systems Engineer
Living Computer Museum
2245 1st Avenue S
Seattle, WA 98134
mailto:RichA at LivingComputerMuseum.org
http://www.LivingComputerMuseum.org/