The International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) was founded in 1911 as the Computing-Tabulating-Recording-Company. The company was formed from four other corporations including Herman Hollerith’s Tabulating Machine Company. IBM quickly came to dominate the international punch-card tabulating and accounting machine market using an 80-column punched card design.

In the 1950s IBM began designing and manufacturing mainframe computers for industry and business. Many IBM computers designed from the 1950s through 1960s relied on 80-punch-cards for data entry using IBM’s accounting machine peripherals. Some low-cost IBM computers in this period also supported paper tape, whilst a more compact 96-column punch card was introduced for low-cost IBM computers in 1969.