Herman Hollerith's Tabulating Machine: The 1890 Census Machine That Saved $5 Million and Launched IBM
The punched card tabulator
In the 1880s, Herman Hollerith invented an electric tabulating machine that used punched cards to process the 1890 US Census, cutting the count from eight years to six months and saving $5 million. His invention introduced mechanized data processing and the binary principle of ones and zeros, and it led to the founding of IBM. The machine's success spread worldwide, and its methods were used for over 60 years.
Hollerith’s tabulating system saved the Census Office USD 5 million and more than two years of labor.
- jp57
While spitting out numbers, these machines generated exorbitant profits over decades for the company that would become known as IBM.
Funny that IBM would describe its own profits as “exorbitant”. A little truth in advertising for once?
- danrecht
Fun fact: Hollerith did his initial work on this during his brief stint as a mechanical engineering instructor at MIT so (if you squint) this is the first MIT compute hardware spinout.
- forinti
> During a short stint compiling manufacturing statistics for the US Census Office, Herman Hollerith grew frustrated with the organization’s manual process of counting questionnaires.
Go out to the world and do something, however boring it may seem. You've got more chances of having a bright ideia than if you stay home just thinking.