Tristan Davey's Punch Card Archive

Tristan Davey's Punch Card Archive documents and preserves a selection of punched cards and related ephemera, which were once widely used for accounting, data collection, and early computing. At their peak in the 1950s and 1960s, millions of these cards were printed monthly by hundreds of companies worldwide before quickly fading from public memory after becoming obsolete.

Punched cards were once a ubiquitous part of accounting, data collection and early computing. At their peak of use, in the 1950s and 60s, hundreds of companies around the world printed millions of punch cards every month. Yet within a few years of their obsolescence they all but disappeared from the public consciousness. This archive captures a small selection of these cards and their ephemera, and aims to document and preserve these pieces of history for the future. This archive includes: