"Hollerith later claimed to have got the idea of using punched cards from the
example of a system used for checking railway tickets, although his brother claimed
that the idea had come from the use of punched cards in the Jacquard loom, with
which Hollerith would have been familiar"
11Computers in radiologyComputer architecture275Central processing unit277Bulk storage281Data input/output285Software287Networking289Computer systems in radiology300Keywords31011.1 COMPUTER ARCHITECTUREThe concept of computer design starts with CharlesBabbage (1792–1871; British mathematician) who in 1822 described an analytical engine to the RoyalAstronomical Society. Countess Augusta Lovelace(daughter of Lord Byron) was his assistant and couldbe identified as the first computer programmer.Important foundation work was started by GeorgeBoole (1815–1864; British/Irish mathematician) whodeveloped an analysis of logic in 1847 and Booleanalgebra later became the cornerstone of modern computer design. Herman Hollerith (1860–1929;American inventor) meanwhile devised a method in1880 for automating the process of data handling intoan electromechanical counter using a series of cardswith punched holes. A similar method was alreadybeing used by the weaving industry for controllingtheir machines. In 1911 Hollerith merged with threeother companies to form the Computing TabulatingRecording Company, later to become part of IBM.
After receiving his Engineer of Mines (EM) degree at age 19, Hollerith worked on the 1880 US census, a laborious and error-prone operation that cried out for mechanization. After some initial trials with paper tape, he settled on punched cards (pioneered in the Jacquard loom) to record information, and designed special equipment -- a tabulator and sorter -- to tally the results. His designs won the competition for the 1890 US census, chosen for their ability to count combined facts. These machines reduced a ten-year job to three months (some sources give different numbers, ranging from six weeks to three years), saved the 1890 taxpayers five million dollars, and earned him an 1890 Columbia PhD¹.
678 [Dec.
The ELECTRICAL
By DR. HERMA
[Read before the Royal Statistical Society, 4th December, 1894.]
WHILE engaged in work in the tenth census, that of 1880, my
attention was called by Dr. Billings to the need of some mechanical
device for facilitating the compilation of population and similar
statistics. This led me to a consideration of the problems in-
volved
Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Vol. 57, No. 4 (Dec., 1894), pp. 678-689 (12 pages)
678 [Dec.
The ELECTRICAL
By DR. HERMA
[Read before the Royal Statistical Society, 4th December, 1894.]
WHILE engaged in work in the tenth census, that of 1880, my
attention was called by Dr. Billings to the need of some mechanical
device for facilitating the compilation of population and similar
statistics. This led me to a consideration of the problems in-
volved
Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Vol. 57, No. 4 (Dec., 1894), pp. 678-689 (12 pages)
References (hide)
Biography in Encyclopaedia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/biography/Herman-Hollerith
G D Austrian, Herman Hollerith : forgotten giant of information processing (New York, 1982).
A G Debus (ed.), Herman Hollerith, World's Who's Who in Science (1968).
F Gareth Ashurst, Pioneers of computing (London, 1983), 77-90.
A Class, Introducing the past master of punch cards, Computing (1990), 16-17.
Herman Hollerith, Dictionary of American Biography Supp 1, 415-416.
Herman Hollerith, The New York Times (19 November, 1929).
Herman Hollerith, The Evening Star (Washington) (18 November, 1929).
F W Kistermann, The invention and development of the Hollerith punched card : in commemoration of the 130th anniversary of the birth of Herman Hollerith and for the 100th anniversary of large scale data processing, Annals of the history of computing 13 (1991), 245-259.
K S Reid-Green, The history of census tabulation, Scientific American 260 (1989), 78-83.
(No Model.) 5 Sheets-Sheet 1.
H. HOLLERITH.
MACHINE FOR TABULATING STATISTICS.
No. 526,130. Patented Sept. 18,1894.
lgzlzwJ-e-fr /7wen%072' 2 Z r B wiww W Wrmgya:
(No Model.) 5 Sheets-Sheet 2.
H. HOLLERITH. MACHINE FOR TABU-LATING STATISTICS.
No. 526,130. Patented Sept. 18,1894.
(No Model.) 5 Sheets-Sheet 3.
Perforations to allow elec-trical contacts was not a new idea: the automatictelegraph, for example, operated similarly. Whatwas new was the coding of the data and the useof the contact for counting.Hollerith soon realized that the continuousstrips were impractical, since tabulating somespecific group required passing through a greatdeal of paper. (This is the same problem we havewith non-random access devices like magnetictape today.) He then struck on the idea of usingcards rather than continuous rolls of paper. It isnot clear where he got this idea and he neverclaimed to have invented the data card which eventoday bears his name. One anecdote suggests heobserved a railroad conductor punching pas-sengers’ profiles on a ticket. Indeed, among hispersonal effects was found a conductor’s punchstamped with a patent date of July 20, 1880.Another possibility is that he knew about theJacquard loom, since his brother-in-law and finan-cial backer was in the textile business. This de-vice, invented by a Frenchman, Joseph Marie Jac-quard, revolutionized the textile industry at thestart of the nineteenth century. It comprised a se-ries of cards with holes punched in them by whichweavers could pre-select warp threads to beraised or lowered, thereby creating intricate andrepeatable patterns. Simply, they could &dquo;pro-gram&dquo; the weaving process. Charles Babbage(1792-1871), considered by some the father ofmodern computing, also borrowed this notion ofthe Jacquard loom as the mechanism to inputquantities and instructions into his famous Ana-lytic Engine (Evans, 1981; Goldstine, 1972; at SAGE Publications on December 9, 2012ssc.sagepub.comDownloaded from 203Randell, 1975). In any event, the Hollerith Cardand Tabulating Machine caught on both in theUnited States and in Europe.The Hollerith System not only permanently af-fected the manner in which work was done; it alsoset the stage for some permanent changes in thenature of the work force. About thirty years earli-er Christopher Latham Sholes had invented thefirst workable writing machine. Initially, it wasused primarily by men for the &dquo;female mind hadbeen considered too flighty to master typing andthe female body too frail to operate heavymachines&dquo; (Austrian, 1982, pp. 70-71).
Then came the
census of 1880. As that vast process went on, month after month, entirely
by hand, Billings at some point recalled a prototype device that might, with
adaptation, meet the needs of tabulating census results. In a conversation with
a young engineer, Herman Hollerith, Billings said ". . there ought to be
some mechanical way of doing this job, something on the principle of the
Jacquard loom, whereby holes in a card regulate the pattern to be
woven."