The IBM 711 was a

punched card A punched card (also punch card or punched-card) is a stiff paper-based medium used to store digital information via the presence or absence of holes in predefined positions. Developed over the 18th to 20th centuries, punched cards were widel ...

reader used as a peripheral device for

IBM International Business Machines Corporation (using the trademark IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is ...

mainframe vacuum tube computers and early transistorized computers. Announced on May 21, 1952, it was first shipped with the

IBM 701 The IBM 701 Electronic Data Processing Machine, known as the Defense Calculator while in development, was IBM’s first commercial scientific computer and its first series production mainframe computer, which was announced to the public on May 2 ...

. Later IBM computers that used it were the

IBM 704 The IBM 704 is the model name of a large digital computer, digital mainframe computer introduced by IBM in 1954. Designed by John Backus and Gene Amdahl, it was the first mass-produced computer with hardware for floating-point arithmetic. The I ...

, the

IBM 709 The IBM 709 is a computer system that was announced by IBM in January 1957 and first installed during August 1958. The 709 was an improved version of its predecessor, the IBM 704, and was the third of the IBM 700/7000 series of scientific compute ...

, and the transistorized IBM 7090 and 7094.

Overview

The 711's read mechanism was based on the IBM 402's and could read 150 cards per minute (250 cards per minute on the IBM 7090). It included a control panel that could be wired to transfer any 72 columns out of the 80 on a card into the computer's memory, though in practice the panel was almost always wired to read the first 72 columns. Cards were read in binary format. Data from each row was read into two 36-bit words, starting with row 9, for a total of 24 words per card. Computer object code could then be executed directly. Conversion to characters or numbers was done in software. The 72 column restriction influenced early computer languages, such as Fortran and

Cobol COBOL (; an acronym for "common business-oriented language") is a compiled English-like computer programming language designed for business use. It is an imperative, procedural, and, since 2002, object-oriented language. COBOL is primarily ...

, which only allowed source code in the first 72 columns of each punched card. The 711 was relatively slow and magnetic tape was much faster, so it was common for 7000 series installations to include an

IBM 1401 The IBM 1401 is a variable word length computer, variable-wordlength decimal computer that was announced by IBM on October 5, 1959. The first member of the highly successful IBM 1400 series, it was aimed at replacing unit record equipment for pr ...

, with its high speed peripherals, to do card-to-tape and tape-to-line-printer operations off-line, with the 711 mainly used for

initial program load In computing, booting is the process of starting a computer as initiated via hardware such as a physical button on the computer or by a software command. After it is switched on, a computer's central processing unit (CPU) has no software in ...

operating systems An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ...

and diagnostics. Variants of the 711, the IBM 712 and the IBM 714 were used with the

IBM 702 The IBM 702 was an early generation electronic tube, tube-based digital computer produced by IBM in the early to mid-1950s. It was the company's response to Remington Rand's UNIVAC I, UNIVAC, which was the first mainframe computer to use magneti ...

and IBM 705 computers.IBM 714 at Computer History Museum
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In the media

*An IBM 711 is shown reading cards as part of an IBM 7090 installation in the 2016 American biographical film ''

Hidden Figures ''Hidden Figures'' is a 2016 American Biographical film, biographical Drama (film and television), drama film directed by Theodore Melfi and written by Melfi and Allison Schroeder. It is loosely based on the 2016 non-fiction Hidden Figures (boo ...

.''

References

{{reflist IBM 700/7000 series Card reader (punched cards) 711

Overview

In the media

See also

References