Engineer and computer inventor, born in Buffalo, New York, USA. Working as a statistician for the US census of 1880, he became aware of the need for automation in the recording and processing of vast amounts of data. Working first at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and then at the US Patent Office (188490), he invented a tabulating machine that was fed data via electrical contacts controlled by the holes in punch cards. His machine won a contest for the best data-processing equipment for the US census of 1890, and he organized the Tabulating Machine Co (1896) to make improved versions that soon were being used by other countries. His company merged with others to become the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Co (1911), which adopted the name of International Business Machines Corp (1924). Although he was early praised for revolutionizing statistical processing, it was only decades later that he was recognized as having anticipated the modern computer.
| Herman Hollerith | |
|---|---|
| Herman Hollerith | |
| Born |
February 29, 1860 Buffalo, New York |
| Died | November 17, 1929 |
| Occupation | statistician, inventor, businessperson |
Herman Hollerith (February 29, 1860 – November 17, 1929) was an American statistician who developed a mechanical tabulator based on punched cards to rapidly tabulate statistics from millions of pieces of data.
Personal life
He was born on February 29, 1860, in Buffalo, New York, to Johann Georg Hollerith (1808–1869) and Franciska Brunn, both of Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.
Career
After graduating, he immediately obtained a job with the US Census Bureau as a special agent collecting and analyzing statistical information on the use of steam and water power in the iron and steel industries. He knew, from his brother-in-law who was involved in the silk-weaving business, of the Jacquard loom which used holes in cards to program its complicated patterns of weaving, but it was reportedly the further inspiration of a 'punch photograph' train ticket, on which passenger details (such as height and hair color) were punched out around the edge by the conductor, that clinched his key invention. Hollerith decided that each census taker could do the same, with the resulting punched card being sorted by a variation of the Jacquard loom;
Electronic tabulation of statistical data
Thus, urged on by John Shaw Billings, he developed a mechanism for reading the presence or absence of holes in the cards using spring-mounted needles that passed through the holes to make electrical connections to trigger a counter to record one more of each value. Hollerith saw that if the numbers could then be punched in specified columns on the cards, the cards could be sorted mechanically, and therefore the appropriate columns totalled.
Tabulating Machine Company
He built machines under contract for the US Census Bureau, which used them to tabulate the 1890 census in 2.5 years. a punch that was operated from a keyboard) allowing a skilled operator to punch 200–300 cards per hour and a tabulator. The 1890 Tabulator was hardwired to operate only on 1890 Census cards.
International Business Machines
In 1911, his firm merged with two others to form the Computing Tabulating Recording Corporation (CTR).
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