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The tabulating machine was an electromechanical machine designed to assist in summarizing information stored on punched cards. Invented by Herman Hollerith, the machine was developed to help process data for the 1890 U.S. Census. Later models were widely used for business applications such as accounting and inventory control.
Starting at the end of the nineteenth century, well before the advent of electronic computers, data processing was performed using electromechanical machines collectively referred to as unit record equipment, electric accounting machines (EAM) or tabulating machines. [1][2][3][4] Unit record machines came to be as ubiquitous in industry and ...
Herman Hollerith (February 29, 1860 – November 17, 1929) was an 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 ...
A Hollerith tabulator that has been modified for the first 1890 census tabulation; the punched-card reader was removed, replaced by a simple keyboard. [2]: 61 The 1890 census was the first to be compiled using methods invented by Herman Hollerith and was overseen by Superintendents Robert P. Porter (1889–1893) and Carroll D. Wright (1893–1897).
Hollerith Electronic Computer. The Hollerith Electronic Computer (HEC) was produced by the British Tabulating Machine Company (BTM) and was based on a design by Professor Andrew Booth of Birkbeck College, London. [1] It was Britain's first mass-produced business computer. The prototype first worked at the end of 1951. [1]
A 12-row/80-column IBM punched card from the mid-twentieth century. A punched card (also punch card[1] or punched-card[2]) is a piece of card stock that stores digital data using punched holes. Punched cards were once common in data processing and the control of automated machines. Punched cards were widely used in the 20th century, where unit ...
British Tabulating Machine Company. The British Tabulating Machine Company (BTM) was a firm which manufactured and sold Hollerith unit record equipment and other data-processing equipment. During World War II, BTM constructed some 200 "bombes", machines used at Bletchley Park to break the German Enigma machine ciphers.
In 1890, the government began leasing tabulating machines from Herman Hollerith's Tabulating Machine Company, to more efficiently, expansively, and accurately produce the national census. In 1900, Hollerith raised the lease pricing. This led the newly formed U.S. Census Bureau to seek other suppliers under its new director, Simon North, in 1903.