Frequently Asked Questions

Question #17: Couldn't I just type the text printed on the cards? Couldn't I just OCR the text? Couldn't I just buy a used card reader? Couldn't I just train a student to read the holes in the cards? Couldn't I just build a card reader out of a Coke bottle and a windshield wiper? Couldn't I just ....
Uh... You care about accuracy, right? Our world-class clients have a real business need to recover their data accurately and reuse it. Our image processing apps were written by a professional computer scientist and tested and refined and expanded for years. Our customers expect expertise, accuracy, and data analysis that magically finds their typos and exposes long-forgotten errors. We give them that. Reading the little holes in the cards was just the beginning. But hey, good luck making a lens out of that Coke bottle. ;^) When you're serious about recovering your data perfectly, you know where to find us.
Question #5: How good is your accuracy?
Far, far better than a typist.
Every punch card is analyzed by two versions of our imaging software. The results are compared and then passed through our statistical anomaly detection software, and a human reviews anything suspicious. Next, your cards are inspected by an expert in ancient data practices and encodings.

40-year-old typos, caught and highlighted by a 21st Century computer.
The yellow columns contain a sequence number which the customer had thought was in order.
Our computer didn't just find the error — it figured out what the typist intended.

Can your card reader do that?

The software has intuition. It's not exactly AI, but it's close.
Our process is automated, it's thorough, it has sex appeal, and it's included in the regular price.

Question #2: Do people still use punch cards?
Say hello to our list of clients. You know some of them by name.

Customers are saying:

 



Logo: PunchCardReader.com. Card Reader Service for 80-Column IBM Punch Cards



Copyright © 2005-2016  J. E. Brown   all rights reserved.

In the secret city of Los Alamos, New Mexico USA.