The purpose of this paper is to study and give the perception of the relatively slow progress and spread of computerization and the first information retrieval system between the 1860 and the II world war end. Starting from Herman Hollerith, the statistician who, working at the U.S. census, has invented the first punched card coding of data and the electro-mechanical system to read and compute these data, the Electric Tabulating Machine; the paper considers and continues with the hand managed information retrieval systems based on different type of punched cards, like the edge notched punched cards as the Cope-Chat or McBee cards, the Zatocards of Calvin N. Mooers, the peek-a-boo cards invented by William E. Batten, up to the Uniterm cards system of Mortimer Taube
