The promulgator of the href="module.php?name=Lexikon&file=search&eid=1&query=punched card">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 href="module.php?name=Lexikon&file=search&eid=1&query=Tabulating Machine Company">Tabulating Machine Company to exploit his invention and in 1924 his firm became part of href="module.php?name=Lexikon&file=search&eid=1&query=IBM">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 eachhole had a more-or-less independent function. (2001-08-30)
