Term of the Moment
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Definition: hopper
(1) For the NVIDIA GPU chip, see NVIDIA Grace Hopper Superchip.
(2) A tray, or chute, that accepts input to a mechanical device, such as a disk duplicator or printer. In the days of punch cards, millions of cards were numerically or alphabetically organized by placing them into the hopper of a card sorter, taking them out of all the stackers and putting them back into the hopper for the next card column.
A Hopper for a Sorter
Paper Hoppers
(2) A tray, or chute, that accepts input to a mechanical device, such as a disk duplicator or printer. In the days of punch cards, millions of cards were numerically or alphabetically organized by placing them into the hopper of a card sorter, taking them out of all the stackers and putting them back into the hopper for the next card column.
From the 1940s to the 1970s, millions of punch cards were hand fed into the hoppers on IBM sorters such as this one. Hoppers were commonly fitted with two-foot extensions that held many more cards. (Image courtesy of The Computer History Museum.)
This Dataproducts laser printer holds 250 sheets of paper in the top hopper and 2,000 in the bottom. (Image courtesy of Hitachi Koki Imaging Solutions, Inc.)