1889 MECHENICAL CALCULATORS--TABULATING MACHINE

Although the united State census survey was completed in 1880,it took more than seven years for thousands of clerk to manually tabulate the Responses before the result could could be published .By the time the results were published,in charge of vital statistics at the Bureau of the Census,mentioned to Herman Hollerith (1860-1929)that there should be away to calculate using punched cards like those used in the Jacquard loom.Hollerith began to develop the idea and by 1884,shortly after resigning from the bareau,he had made enough progress to apply for a patent on his machine.Hollerith's tabulating machine used cards in which clerks punched holes

.The patterns of the holes described each person 's response to the survey questionnaire.The cards were then inserted into a pin reader that tabulated the result.Pins going through the holes in the cards made as electrical contact that advanced the counters for each hole.The dials on the unit are the equivalent of today's display screen.They always indicated the current count for each hole in the punched cards that had been tabulated.The use of this electromechanical equipment allowed the bureau,in its 1890 US census,to releas the total population figure (65,622,250)only one month after the questionnaire return had arrived in Washington. A complete tabulation,breacking down the response in great detail,took only two and a half years,three times faster than the previous census.Hollerith established the Tabulating Machine Company to commercially exploit his technology.

His company manufactured the machines and cards and provided consulting services to govemment around the world. In 1911 the company was renamed international Business Machine Corporation, one of today's giants in the computer industry.