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Hollerith constants, named in honor of Herman Hollerith, were used in early FORTRAN programs to allow manipulation of character data. Early FORTRAN had no CHARACTER data type , only numeric types. In order to perform character manipulation, characters needed to be placed into numeric variables using Hollerith constants.
Hollerith started his own business as The Hollerith Electric Tabulating System, specializing in punched card data processing equipment. [10] In 1896 he incorporated 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.
The code is derived from the Hollerith Punched Card Code, where both a digit and a sign can be entered in the same card column. It is called an overpunch because the digit in that column has a 12-punch or an 11-punch above it to indicate the sign.
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.
A U.S. Census Bureau clerk (left) prepares punch cards using a pantograph similar to that developed by Herman Hollerith for the 1890 Census, while a second clerk (right) uses a 1930s key punch to perform the same task more quickly. A wall-sized display sample of a punch card for the 1954 U.S. Census of Agriculture
In the first commercial electronic data processing Hollerith machines were used to compile the data accumulated in the 1890 U.S. Census of population. [4] Hollerith's Tabulating Machine Company merged with two other firms to form the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company, later renamed IBM. The punch-card and tabulation machine business ...
Replica of Hollerith tabulating machine with sorting box, circa 1890. The "sorting box" was an adjunct to, and controlled by, the tabulator. The "sorter", an independent machine, was a later development. [15] 1884: Herman Hollerith files a patent application titled "Art of Compiling Statistics"; granted U.S. patent 395,782 on January 8, 1889.
Alphabetic columns have a zone punch in rows 12, 11, or 0 and a digit punch in one of the rows 1-9, and can be sorted by passing some or all of the cards through the sorter twice on that column. For more details of punched card codes see punched card#IBM 80-column format and character codes.