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38-485: Herman Hollerith (February 29, 1860 – November 17, 1929) was a German-American statistician, inventor, and businessman who developed an electromechanical tabulating machine for punched cards to assist in summarizing information and, later, in accounting. His invention of the punched card tabulating machine, patented in 1884, marks the beginning of the era of mechanized binary code and semiautomatic data processing systems, and his concept dominated that landscape for nearly

76-513: A century. Hollerith founded a company that was amalgamated in 1911 with several other companies to form the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company . In 1924, the company was renamed "International Business Machines" ( IBM ) and became one of the largest and most successful companies of the 20th century. Hollerith is regarded as one of the seminal figures in the development of data processing. Herman Hollerith

114-442: A century. In 1911, four corporations, including Hollerith's firm, were amalgamated to form a fifth company, the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company (CTR). Under the presidency of Thomas J. Watson , CTR was renamed International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) in 1924. By 1933 The Tabulating Machine Company name had disappeared as subsidiary companies were subsumed by IBM. Herman Hollerith died November 17, 1929. Hollerith

152-418: A dial divided into 100 divisions, with two indicator hands; one which stepped one unit with each counting pulse, the other which advanced one unit every time the other dial made a complete revolution. This arrangement allowed a count of up to 9,999. During a given tabulating run, counters could be assigned to a specific hole or, by using relay logic , to a combination of holes, e.g. to count married couples. If

190-515: A fifth company, the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company (CTR). The Powers Accounting Machine Company was formed that same year and, like Hollerith, with machines first developed at the Census Bureau. In 1919 the first Bull tabulator prototype was developed. Tabulators that could print, and with removable control panels, appeared in the 1920s. In 1924 CTR was renamed International Business Machines (IBM). In 1927 Remington Rand acquired

228-502: A heart attack in Washington, D.C., at age 69. At the suggestion of John Shaw Billings , Hollerith developed a mechanism using electrical connections to increment a counter, recording information. A key idea was that a datum could be recorded by the presence or absence of a hole at a specific location on a card. For example, if a specific hole location indicates marital status , then a hole there can indicate married while not having

266-503: A hole indicates single . Hollerith determined that data in specified locations on a card, arranged in rows and columns, could be counted or sorted electromechanically. A description of this system, An Electric Tabulating System (1889) , was submitted by Hollerith to Columbia University as his doctoral thesis, and is reprinted in Brian Randell 's 1982 The Origins of Digital Computers, Selected Papers . On January 8, 1889, Hollerith

304-474: A speed of 150 cards per minute and listed alphanumerical data at 80 cards per minute. IBM 405: Introduced in 1934, the 405 Alphabetical Accounting Machine was the basic bookkeeping and accounting machine marketed by IBM for many years. Important features were expanded adding capacity, greater flexibility of counter grouping, direct printing of the entire alphabet, direct subtraction and printing of either debit or credit balance from any counter. Commonly called

342-647: A sufficient set of equipment. (In modern data processing terms, one can think of each stage as an SQL clause: SELECT (filter columns), then WHERE (filter cards, or "rows"), then maybe a GROUP BY for totals and counts, then a SORT BY; and then perhaps feed those back to another set of SELECT and WHERE cycles again if needed.) A human operator had to retrieve, load, and store the various card decks at each stage. Hollerith's first tabulators were used to compile mortality statistics for Baltimore, Jersey City and New York City in 1886. The first Tabulating Machine Company (TMC) automatic feed tabulator, operating at 150 cards/minute,

380-619: Is buried at Oak Hill Cemetery in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Hollerith cards were named after Herman Hollerith, as were Hollerith strings and Hollerith constants . His great-grandson, the Rt. Rev. Herman Hollerith IV , was the Episcopal bishop of the Diocese of Southern Virginia , and another great-grandson, Randolph Marshall Hollerith , is an Episcopal priest and

418-521: The 1900 U.S. census . He invented the first automatic card-feed mechanism and the first keypunch . The 1890 Tabulator was hardwired to operate on 1890 Census cards. A control panel in his 1906 Type I Tabulator simplified rewiring for different jobs. The 1920s removable control panel supported prewiring and near instant job changing. These inventions were among the foundations of the data processing industry, and Hollerith's punched cards (later used for computer input/output ) continued in use for almost

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456-471: The IBM 1401 . Two programming languages, FARGO and RPG , were created to aid this migration. Since tabulator control panels were based on the machine cycle, both FARGO and RPG emulated the notion of the machine cycle and training material showed the control panel vs. programming language coding sheet relationships. In its basic form, a tabulating machine would read one card at a time, print portions (fields) of

494-726: The Integrated Public Use Microdata Series . Aggregate data for small areas, together with compatible cartographic boundary files, can be downloaded from the National Historical Geographic Information System . The 1880 census determined the resident population of the United States to be 50,189,209, an increase of 30.2 percent over the 38,555,983 persons enumerated during the 1870 census . The mean center of United States population for 1880

532-857: The states , a combination of larger staff and faster-recording systems was required. In the late 1880s Herman Hollerith , inspired by conductors using holes punched in different positions on a railway ticket to record traveler details such as gender and approximate age, invented the recording of data on a machine-readable medium. Prior uses of machine-readable media had been for lists of instructions (not data) to drive programmed machines such as Jacquard looms . "After some initial trials with paper tape, he settled on punched cards ..." Hollerith used punched cards with round holes, 12 rows, and 24 columns. The cards measured 3 + 1 ⁄ 4 by 6 + 5 ⁄ 8 inches (83 by 168 mm). His tabulator used electromechanical solenoids to increment mechanical counters. A set of spring-loaded wires were suspended over

570-435: The 405 "tabulator," this machine remained the flagship of IBM's product line until after World War II. The British at Hut 8 used Hollerith machinery to gain some knowledge of Known-plaintext attack cribs used by encrypted German messages. IBM 402 and 403, from 1948, were modernized successors to the 405. The 1952 Bull Gamma 3 could be attached to this tabulator or to a card read/punch. IBM 407 Introduced in 1949,

608-476: The 407 was the mainstay of the IBM unit record product line for almost three decades. It was later adapted to serve as an input/output peripheral for several early electronic calculators and computers. Its printing mechanism was used in the IBM 716 line printer for the IBM 700/7000 series and later with the IBM 1130 through the mid-1970s. The IBM 407 Accounting Machine was withdrawn from marketing in 1976, signaling

646-469: The Census Bureau; after which the original sheets were transferred to various state archives, libraries, or universities. The microfilmed census is available in rolls from the National Archives and Records Administration . Several organizations also host images of the microfilmed census online, along which digital indices. Microdata from the 1880 population census are freely available through

684-496: The Census Office, which used them for the 1890 census . The net effect of the many changes from the 1880 census: the larger population, the data items to be collected, the Census Bureau headcount, the scheduled publications, and the use of Hollerith's electromechanical tabulators, reduced the time required to process the census from eight years for the 1880 census to six years for the 1890 census. In 1896, Hollerith founded

722-553: The Powers Accounting Machine Company. In 1933 The Tabulating Machine Company was subsumed into IBM. These companies continued to develop faster and more sophisticated tabulators, culminating in tabulators such as 1949 IBM 407 and 1952 Remington Rand 409 . Tabulating machines continued to be used well after the introduction of commercial electronic computers in the 1950s. Many applications using unit record tabulators were migrated to computers such as

760-596: The Tabulating Machine Company (in 1905 renamed The Tabulating Machine Company). Many major census bureaus around the world leased his equipment and purchased his cards, as did major insurance companies. Hollerith's machines were used for censuses in England & Wales , Italy , Germany , Russia , Austria , Canada , France , Norway , Puerto Rico , Cuba , and the Philippines , and again in

798-688: The Tabulating Machine Company. In that year he introduced the Hollerith Integrating Tabulator, which could add numbers coded on punched cards, not just count the number of holes. Punched cards were still read manually using the pins and mercury pool reader. 1900 saw the Hollerith Automatic Feed Tabulator used in that year's U.S. census. A control panel was incorporated in the 1906 Type 1. In 1911, four corporations, including Hollerith's firm, were amalgamated (via stock acquisition) to form

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836-503: The card on fan-fold paper , possibly rearranged, and add one or more numbers punched on the card to one or more counters, called accumulators . On early models, the accumulator register dials would be read manually after a card run to get totals. Later models could print totals directly. Cards with a particular punch could be treated as master cards causing different behavior. For example, customer master cards could be merged with sorted cards recording individual items purchased. When read by

874-407: The card reader. The card sat over pools of mercury , pools corresponding to the possible hole positions in the card. When the wires were pressed onto the card, punched holes allowed wires to dip into the mercury pools, making an electrical contact that could be used for counting, sorting, and setting off a bell to let the operator know the card had been read. The tabulator had 40 counters, each with

912-425: The card was to be sorted, a compartment lid of the sorting box would open for storage of the card, the choice of compartment depending on the data in the card. Hollerith's method was used for the 1890 census. Clerks used keypunches to punch holes in the cards entering age, state of residence, gender, and other information from the returns. Some 100 million cards were generated and "the cards were only passed through

950-680: The circuits through which are controlled by the perforated sheets, substantially as and for the purpose set forth. Hollerith had left teaching and began working for the United States Census Bureau in the year he filed his first patent application. Titled "Art of Compiling Statistics", it was filed on September 23, 1884; U.S. Patent 395,782 was granted on January 8, 1889. Hollerith initially did business under his own name, as The Hollerith Electric Tabulating System , specializing in punched card data processing equipment . He provided tabulators and other machines under contract for

988-526: The country, and included the manufactures of iron and steel; cotton, woolen, and worsted goods; silk and silk goods; chemical products and salt; coke and glass; shipbuilding; and all aspects of fisheries and mining, including the production of coal and petroleum. Full documentation for the 1880 population census, including census forms and enumerator instructions, is available from the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series , which contains microdata. The original census enumeration sheets were microfilmed by

1026-423: The data came from correspondence with officials of institutions providing care and treatment of certain members of the population. Experts and special agents also were employed to collect data on valuation, taxation, and indebtedness; religion and libraries; colleges, academies, and schools; newspapers and periodicals, and wages. Special agents were also charged with collecting data on specific industries throughout

1064-521: The dean of Washington National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. Tabulating machine The term " Super Computing " was used by the New York World newspaper in 1931 to refer to a large custom-built tabulator that IBM made for Columbia University . The 1880 census had taken eight years to process. Since the U.S. Constitution mandates a census every ten years to apportion both congressional representatives and direct taxes among

1102-521: The end of the unit record era. IBM 421 For early use of tabulators for scientific computations see 1880 United States census The 1880 United States census , conducted by the Census Office during June 1880, was the tenth United States census . It was the first time that women were permitted to be enumerators . The Superintendent of the Census was Francis Amasa Walker . This

1140-455: The machines four times during the whole of the operations." According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the census results were "... finished months ahead of schedule and far under budget." The advantages of the technology were immediately apparent for accounting and tracking inventory . Hollerith started his own business as The Hollerith Electric Tabulating System , specializing in punched card data processing equipment . In 1896 he incorporated

1178-494: The tabulating machine to create invoices, the billing address and customer number would be printed from the master card, and then individual items purchased and their price would be printed. When the next master card was detected, the total price would be printed from the accumulator and the page ejected to the top of the next page, typically using a carriage control tape . With successive stages or cycles of punched-card processing, fairly complex calculations could be made if one had

Herman Hollerith - Misplaced Pages Continue

1216-562: The tabulating system. In 1882, Hollerith joined the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he taught mechanical engineering and conducted his first experiments with punched cards. He eventually moved to Washington, D.C., living in Georgetown with a home on 29th Street and a business building at 31st Street and the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal , where today there is a commemorative plaque installed by IBM . He died of

1254-461: The transition from tabulating to accounting machines. The Type IV could list 100 cards per minute. H.W.Egli - BULL Tabulator model T30 , 1931 IBM 401: The 401, introduced in 1933, was an early entry in a long series of IBM alphabetic tabulators and accounting machines. It was developed by a team headed by J. R. Peirce and incorporated significant functions and features invented by A. W. Mills , F. J. Furman and E. J. Rabenda . The 401 added at

1292-621: Was born in Buffalo, New York , in 1860, where he also spent his early childhood. His parents were German immigrants; his father, Georg Hollerith, was a school teacher from Großfischlingen , Rhineland-Palatinate . He entered the City College of New York in 1875, graduated from the Columbia School of Mines with an Engineer of Mines degree in 1879 at age 19, and, in 1890, earned a Doctor of Philosophy based on his development of

1330-530: Was developed in 1906. The first TMC printing tabulator was developed in 1920. TMC Type IV Accounting Machine (later renamed the IBM 301), from the IBM Archives : The 301 (better known as the Type IV ) Accounting Machine was the first card-controlled machine to incorporate class selection, automatic subtraction, and printing of a net positive or negative balance. Dating to 1928, this machine exemplifies

1368-562: Was in Boone County, Kentucky . The results from the census were used to determine the apportionment for the 48th , 49th , 50th , 51st , and 52nd sessions of the United States Congress . The processing of the 1880 census data took so long (eight years) that the Census Bureau contracted Herman Hollerith to design and build a tabulating machine to be used for the next census . The 1880 census also led to

1406-494: Was issued U.S. Patent 395,782, claim 2 of which reads: The herein-described method of compiling statistics, which consists in recording separate statistical items pertaining to the individual by holes or combinations of holes punched in sheets of electrically non-conducting material, and bearing a specific relation to each other and to a standard, and then counting or tallying such statistical items separately or in combination by means of mechanical counters operated by electro-magnets

1444-433: Was the first census in which a city— New York City —recorded a population of over one million, and the first census in which the 20 most populated cities all recorded over 100,000 residents. Five schedules were authorized by the 1880 Census Act, four of which were filled out by the enumerators: Schedule 4 (Social statistics) was the responsibility of experts and special agents, rather than the enumerators. The majority of

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