I was traveling in the West and I had a ticket with what I think was called a punch phonograph. . . the conductor . . . punched out a description of the individual, as light hair, dark eyes, large nose, etc. So you see, I only made a punch photograph of each person.

The Hollerith Cards, as they became to be known, could be prepared in any order and stored in a logical manner. In addition they could be replaced or corrected much more easily than the continuous tape. Hollerith described the advantages of the new system:

the individual records embrace a great variety of characteristics and complication are to be made from time to time covering different periods and embracing a wide range of statistical manner . . . the continuous record-strip is not well adapted for the purpose, as it does not afford the means for conveniently classifying and reclassifying individual records.²