General Purpose Cards include a wide variety of cards that were printed with a generic print template which made them suitable for a wide variety of uses. These cards were often used for data entry, but could also be used for programming , data storage, or any other purpose other specialty cards were used for.

All major card manufacturers produced generic general purpose cards, often modelled on the IBM 5081, but it wasn’t uncommon for institutions to have their own cards printed for their own internal use. As such many specimens in this collection are quite generic, but include university, government, or corporate branding.