Herman Hollerith

person The promulgator of the punched card. Hollerith was

born on 1860-02-29 and died on 1929-11-17. He graduated from

Columbia University, NewYork, NY, USA. He joined the US

Census Bureau as a statistician where he used a punched card

device to help analyse the 1880 US census data. This punched

card system stored data in 80 columns. This "80-column"

concept has carried forward in various forms into modern

applications.

In 1896, Hollerith founded the Tabulating Machine Company to

exploit his invention and in 1924 his firm became part of

IBM. The Hollerith system was used for the 1911 UK census.

A correspondant writes:

Wasn't Hollerith's original machine first used for the 1990 US

census? And I think I am right in saying that the physical

layout was a 20x12 grid of round holes. The one I have seen

(picture only, unfortunately, not the real thing) did not use

'columns' as such but holes were grouped into

irregularly-shaped fields, such that each hole had a

more-or-less independent function.

(2001-08-30)