Herman Hollerith

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Herman Hollerith

Herman Hollerith , 1860-1929, American inventor, b. Buffalo, N.Y. After graduating from Columbia Univ. (B.S., 1879), he worked on the U.S. Census of 1880. Intrigued by the problem of tabulating vast amounts of data, he developed over the next several years a card that could be represent data through a series of punched holes and a number of machines for punching and tabulating the cards. In 1896 Hollerith founded the Tabulating Machine Company which, through mergers and acquisitions, grew into the International Business Machines Company.

Bibliography: See G. Austrian, Herman Hollerith (1982).

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Hollerith, Herman

World Encyclopedia | 2005 | Â© World Encyclopedia 2005, originally published by Oxford University Press 2005. (Hide copyright information) Copyright

Hollerith, Herman (1860–1929) US computer pioneer. In 1890, he invented a mechanical tabulating machine that used punched cards to record and process data. These gave rise to the Hollerith code (later employed by early computers) that uses 12 bits per alphanumeric character. Hollerith's firm, the Tabulating Machine Company, later expanded to become International Business Machines (IBM).

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