Decoding IBM Cards

[Cuda Al]

With the recent talk about IBM cards and decoding them I thought I'd share what I have learned

This is an example of a card with punches representing Numbers and punches representing Letters

I do not know if there is an official label for the first two rows I just labeled them A & B

In this example I put the translation along the bottom but on the actual cards the printed text does not line up with the punches.
The top row is for A-I, there will be a second punch on a number below.
A1-A
A2-B
A3-C
A4-D
A5-E
A6-F
A7-G
A8-H
A9-I

After that a punch in the B row is for J-R, again paired with a lower punch.
B1-J
B2-K
B3-L
B4-M
B5-N
B6-O
B7-P
B8-Q
B9-R

Last is the 0 row, these are S-Z (for some reason they did not use 1)
01-(not used)
02-S
03-T
04-U
05-V
06-W
07-X
08-Y
09-Z

If there is no second punch then it is just a number.

Now are these cards capable of more like characters etc with maybe three punches in a column? who knows. I have yet to see more than two punches.


Alan

 

[J-c-c]

 

[Cuda Al]

IBM cars were a way that Chrysler Tracked, Distributed, Logged, etc...
For 1967 and older you can request a copy of your card from Chrysler.
There were apparently different information on different cards but for the most part it has the options the car was built with, essentially the data Plate.

Alan

 

[Murray]

Nice research.