High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! A keypunch is a device for manually entering data into punched cards by precisely punching holes at locations designated by the keys struck by the operator. Early keypunches were manual devices. Later keypunches were mechanized, often resembled a small desk, with a keyboard similar to a typewriter, and with hoppers for blank cards and stackers for punched cards. Some keypunch models could print at the top of columns, the character punched in each of those columns. The small pieces punched out by a keypunch fell into a chad box, or (at IBM) chip box, or bit bucket.