Editing Punched card (section)

=== IBM 96-column format ===
[[File:System 3 punch card.jpg|thumb|IBM 96-column punched card]]
In 1969 IBM introduced a new, smaller, round-hole, 96-column card format along with the [[IBM System/3]] low-end business computer. These cards have tiny, 1&nbsp;mm diameter circular holes, smaller than those in [[Punched tape|paper tape]]. Data is stored in 6-bit [[BCD (character encoding)|BCD]], with three rows of 32 characters each, or 8-bit [[EBCDIC]]. In this format, each column of the top tiers are combined with two punch rows from the bottom tier to form an 8-bit byte, and the middle tier is combined with two more punch rows, so that each card contains 64 bytes of 8-bit-per-byte binary coded data.<ref name="Winter_96"/> As in the 80 column card, readable text was printed in the top section of the card. There was also a 4th row of 32 characters that could be printed. This format was never widely used; it was IBM-only, but they did not support it on any equipment beyond the System/3, where it was quickly superseded by the 1973 [[IBM 3740|IBM 3740 Data Entry System]] using [[Floppy disk#8-inch floppy disk|8-inch floppy disks]].

The format was however recycled in 1978 when IBM re-used the mechanism in its [[IBM 3624]] [[ATM]]s as print-only receipt printers.