from
The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (8 July 2008)
Herman Hollerith
Hollerith, Herman
<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)