IBM punch card F19936 with the IBM Datacenter logo - UnPunched!!!. RARE!!!Perhaps the earliest icon of the Information Age was a simple punched card produced by IBM, commonly known as the “IBM card.” Measuring just 7-3/8 inches by 3-1/4 inches, the piece of smooth stock paper was unassuming, to be sure. But taken collectively, the IBM card held nearly all of the world’s known information for just under half a century.
Beyond accounting purposes, the card had other uses in IBM. Until the early 1990s—long after IBM had ceased selling the punched cards for data processing—it was common practice for IBMers to use them for speaker notes for presentations, as they fit comfortably in the inside pocket of a suit jacket. Secretaries, too, used these cards for transcribing phone messages and typing driving directions. Even IBM executives routinely carried them around with their calendar for the day typed on them.
Personally I used the cards to separate my Baseball cards into teams.