About thirty years ago [H. P. Friedrichs] pulled off a hack that greatly improved the process of programming with punch cards. At the time, his school had just two IBM 029 keypunch machines.

After a two-year transformation, the 55-year-old building in Manhattan’s financial district — used for years to process checks, money transfers ... imitate an IBM punch card), was unfriendly ...

Most people didn’t really use the switches. What most people did do, however, was punch cards. Technically, Hollerith cards, although we mostly just called them cards, punched cards ...