An IBM promotional card from the mid-1950s, introducing magnetic tape for its 700-series computers, with real strips of tape mounted in the card. The back makes the pitch in numbers: “the entire character capacity of a completely punched IBM card can be recorded on .4 of an inch of magnetic tape,” 15,000 characters can be read or written in a second, and one reel holds over 25,000 cards’ worth. Those figures match IBM’s 727 tape unit, announced in 1953. Someone dated the card July 29, 1955.
