Card image is an archaic term for a character string, usually 80 characters in length, that was, or could be, contained on a single punched card. IBM cards were 80 characters in length, UNIVAC cards were 90 characters. A punched card typically held multiple data fields, some numeric, some alphabetic. Many data formats, such as the FITS image file format, still use card images as basic building blocks -- even though punched cards are now mostly obsolete.
Famous quotes containing the words card and/or image:
“I must save this government if possible. What I cannot do, of course I will not do; but it may as well be understood, once for all, that I shall not surrender this game leaving any available card unplayed.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)
“Human beings are compelled to live within a lie, but they can be compelled to do so only because they are in fact capable of living in this way. Therefore not only does the system alienate humanity, but at the same time alienated humanity supports this system as its own involuntary masterplan, as a degenerate image of its own degeneration, as a record of people’s own failure as individuals.”
—Václav Havel (b. 1936)