Punched cards were widely used throughout the 19th century for controlling textile looms and in the late 19th and early 20th century for controlling fairground organs and related instruments.
Punched cards were used through most of the 20th century in what became known as the data processing industry; the use of unit record machines, organized into data processing systems, for data input, processing, and storage. Early digital computers used punched cards, often prepared using keypunch machines, as the primary medium for input of both computer programs and data.