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Evolution of Punched Card Technology

In the 1880s, Herman Hollerith invented punched cards to store machine-readable data, creating the first data processing industry. He developed keypunch, sorter, and tabulator machines to process the punched cards, laying the foundation for modern computing. His 1906 Type I Tabulator was programmable through a control panel, allowing it to perform different jobs without being rebuilt.

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65 views1 page

Evolution of Punched Card Technology

In the 1880s, Herman Hollerith invented punched cards to store machine-readable data, creating the first data processing industry. He developed keypunch, sorter, and tabulator machines to process the punched cards, laying the foundation for modern computing. His 1906 Type I Tabulator was programmable through a control panel, allowing it to perform different jobs without being rebuilt.

Uploaded by

AkshayBhatia
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

In the 1880s, Herman Hollerith invented the recording of data on a medium that

could then be read by a machine. Prior uses of machine readable media, above, had
been for lists of instructions (not data) to drive programmed machines such as
Jacquard looms and mechanized musical instruments. "After some initial trials with
paper tape, he settled on punched cards..."[9] To process these punched cards, first
known as "Hollerith cards" he invented the keypunch, sorter, and tabulator unit
record machines.[10] These inventions were the foundation of the data processing
industry. In 1896 he founded the Tabulating Machine Company (which later became
the core of IBM). The addition of a control panel (plugboard) to his 1906 Type I
Tabulator allowed it to do different jobs without having to be physically rebuilt. By
the late 1940s, there were several unit record calculators, such as the IBM 602 and
IBM 604, whose control panels specified a sequence (list) of operations and thus
were programmable machines.

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