Definition of: hopper

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.

Sorter Hopper
In the 1940s and 1950s, millions of punch cards were placed into hoppers on IBM sorters such as this one. The hoppers were also fitted with two-foot extensions that held more cards. (Image courtesy of The Computer History Museum,

Paper Hoppers
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.)