Tabulating machine
Encyclopedia
Herman Hollerith
Herman Hollerith was an American statistician who developed a mechanical tabulator based on punched cards to rapidly tabulate statistics from millions of pieces of data. He was the founder of one of the companies that later merged and became IBM.-Personal life:Hollerith was born in Buffalo, New...
, the machine was developed to help process data for the 1890 U.S. Census. It spawned a larger class of devices known as unit record equipment
Unit record equipment
Before the advent of electronic computers, data processing was performed using electromechanical devices called unit record equipment, electric accounting machines or tabulating machines. Unit record machines were as ubiquitous in industry and government in the first half of the twentieth century...
and the data processing industry.
The term "Super Computing
Supercomputer
A supercomputer is a computer at the frontline of current processing capacity, particularly speed of calculation.Supercomputers are used for highly calculation-intensive tasks such as problems including quantum physics, weather forecasting, climate research, molecular modeling A supercomputer is a...
" was first used by the New York World
New York World
The New York World was a newspaper published in New York City from 1860 until 1931. The paper played a major role in the history of American newspapers...
newspaper in 1931 to refer to a large custom-built tabulator that IBM
IBM
International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
made for Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
.
1890 census
Population
A population is all the organisms that both belong to the same group or species and live in the same geographical area. The area that is used to define a sexual population is such that inter-breeding is possible between any pair within the area and more probable than cross-breeding with individuals...
from 1880 to 1890, primarily because of immigration
Immigration
Immigration is the act of foreigners passing or coming into a country for the purpose of permanent residence...
, it was estimated that the 1890 census
United States Census, 1890
The Eleventh United States Census was taken June 2, 1890. The data was tabulated by machine for the first time. The data reported that the distribution of the population had resulted in the disappearance of the American frontier...
would take approximately 13 years to complete—an immense logistical problem. Since the U.S. Constitution mandates a census every ten years to apportion taxation between the states and to determine Congressional representation
United States congressional apportionment
United States congressional apportionment is the process by which seats in the United States House of Representatives are redistributed amongst the 50 states following each constitutionally mandated decennial census. Each state is apportioned a number of seats which approximately corresponds to its...
, a faster method was necessary.
In the late 1880s Herman Hollerith
Herman Hollerith
Herman Hollerith was an American statistician who developed a mechanical tabulator based on punched cards to rapidly tabulate statistics from millions of pieces of data. He was the founder of one of the companies that later merged and became IBM.-Personal life:Hollerith was born in Buffalo, New...
, inspired by conductor
Conductor (transportation)
A conductor is a member of a railway train's crew that is responsible for operational and safety duties that do not involve the actual operation of the train. The title of conductor is most associated with railway operations in North America, but the role of conductor is common to railways...
s using holes punched in different positions on a railway ticket
Ticket (admission)
A ticket is a voucher that indicates that one has paid for admission to an event or establishment such as a theatre, movie theater, amusement park, zoo, museum, concert, or other attraction, or permission to travel on a vehicle such as an airliner, train, bus, or boat, typically because one has...
to record traveler details such as gender and approximate age, invented the recording of data on a machine readable medium. Prior uses of machine-readable media had been for control (e.g. automaton
Automaton
An automaton is a self-operating machine. The word is sometimes used to describe a robot, more specifically an autonomous robot. An alternative spelling, now obsolete, is automation.-Etymology:...
s, piano roll
Piano roll
A piano roll is a music storage medium used to operate a player piano, piano player or reproducing piano. A piano roll is a continuous roll of paper with perforations punched into it. The peforations represent note control data...
s, looms
Jacquard loom
The Jacquard loom is a mechanical loom, invented by Joseph Marie Jacquard in 1801, that simplifies the process of manufacturing textiles with complex patterns such as brocade, damask and matelasse. The loom is controlled by punched cards with punched holes, each row of which corresponds to one row...
), not data. "After some initial trials with paper tape, he settled on punched card
Punched card
A punched card, punch card, IBM card, or Hollerith card is a piece of stiff paper that contains digital information represented by the presence or absence of holes in predefined positions...
s..." Hollerith used punched cards with round holes, 12 rows and 24 columns. His machines used relay
Relay
A relay is an electrically operated switch. Many relays use an electromagnet to operate a switching mechanism mechanically, but other operating principles are also used. Relays are used where it is necessary to control a circuit by a low-power signal , or where several circuits must be controlled...
s (and solenoid
Solenoid
A solenoid is a coil wound into a tightly packed helix. In physics, the term solenoid refers to a long, thin loop of wire, often wrapped around a metallic core, which produces a magnetic field when an electric current is passed through it. Solenoids are important because they can create...
s) to increment mechanical counters. A set of spring-loaded wires were suspended over the card reader. The card sat over pools of mercury
Mercury (element)
Mercury is a chemical element with the symbol Hg and atomic number 80. It is also known as quicksilver or hydrargyrum...
, pools corresponding to the possible hole positions in the card. When the wires were pressed onto the card, punched holes allowed wires to dip into the mercury pools, making an electrical contact that could be used for counting, sorting, and setting off a bell to let the operator know the card had been read. If the card was to be sorted a lid for a compartment of the sorting box would open for storage of the card, the choice of compartment depending on the information in the card.
Hollerith's method was used for the 1890 census. The cards were coded for age, state of residence, gender, and other information; clerks punched holes in the cards to enter information from returns. The census results were "... finished months ahead of schedule and far under budget".
Following the 1890 census
The advantages of the technology were immediately apparent for accounting and tracking inventoryInventory
Inventory means a list compiled for some formal purpose, such as the details of an estate going to probate, or the contents of a house let furnished. This remains the prime meaning in British English...
. Hollerith started his own business in 1896, founding the Tabulating Machine Company. In that year he introduced the Hollerith Integrating Tabulator, which could add numbers coded on cards, not just count the number of holes. Cards were still read manually using the pins and mercury pool reader. 1900 saw the Hollerith Automatic Feed Tabulator used in that year's U.S. census. A control panel
Plugboard
A plugboard, or control panel , is an array of jacks, or hubs, into which patch cords can be inserted to complete an electrical circuit. Control panels were used to direct the operation of some unit record equipment...
was incorporated in the 1906 Type 1.
In 1911, four corporations, including Hollerith's firm, merged to form the Computing Tabulating Recording Corporation (CTR)
Computing Tabulating Recording Corporation (CTR)
The Computing Tabulating Recording Corporation was incorporated on June 16, 1911 in Endicott, New York a few miles west of Binghamton. CTR was formed through a merger of four separate corporations: Tabulating Machine Company , the Computing Scale Corporation , the International Time Recording...
. Tabulators that could print, and with removable control panels, appeared in the 1920s. In 1924 CTR was renamed International Business Machines (IBM). IBM continued to develop faster and more sophisticated tabulators, culminating in the 1949 IBM 407
IBM 407
The IBM 407 Accounting Machine, introduced in 1949, was one of a long line of IBM tabulating machines dating back to the days of Herman Hollerith. It was the central component of any unit record equipment shop. In the late 1950s, the 407 was adapted as an input/output device on early computers,...
. Tabulating machines continued to be used well after the introduction of commercial electronic computer
Computer
A computer is a programmable machine designed to sequentially and automatically carry out a sequence of arithmetic or logical operations. The particular sequence of operations can be changed readily, allowing the computer to solve more than one kind of problem...
s in the 1950s.
Operation
In its basic form, a tabulating machine would read one card at a time, print portions (fields) of the card on fan-fold paper, possibly rearranged, and add one or more numbers punched on the card to one or more counters, called accumulatorsAccumulator (computing)
In a computer's central processing unit , an accumulator is a register in which intermediate arithmetic and logic results are stored. Without a register like an accumulator, it would be necessary to write the result of each calculation to main memory, perhaps only to be read right back again for...
. On early models, the accumulator register dials would be read manually after a card run to get totals. Later models could print totals directly. Cards with a particular punch could be treated as master cards causing different behavior. For example, customer master cards could be merged with sorted cards recording individual items purchased. When read by the tabulating machine to create invoices, the billing address and customer number would be printed from the master card, then individual items purchased and their price would be printed. When the next master card was detected, the total price would be printed from the accumulator and the page ejected to the top of the next page, typically using a carriage control tape
Carriage control tape
A carriage control tape was a loop of punched tape that was used to synchronize rapid vertical page movement in most IBM line printers from unit record days through the 1970s. The tape loop was as long as the length of a single page. A pin wheel moved the tape accurately using holes in the center...
.
With successive stages or cycles of punched-card processing, fairly complex calculations could be made if one had a sufficient set of equipment. (In modern data processing terms, one can think of each stage as an SQL
SQL
SQL is a programming language designed for managing data in relational database management systems ....
clause: SELECT (filter columns), then WHERE (filter cards, or "rows"), then maybe a GROUP BY for totals and counts, then a SORT BY; and then perhaps feed those back to another set of SELECT and WHERE cycles again if needed.) A human operator had to retrieve, load, and store the various card decks at each stage.
Models and timeline
Hollerith's first tabulators were used for the U.S. 1890 Census.
The first CTR automatic feed tabulator, operating at 150 cards/minute, was developed in 1906.
The first CTR printing tabulator was developed in 1920.
IBM 301 (Type IV) Accounting Machine: From the IBM Archives:
The 301 (better known as the Type IV) Accounting Machine was the first card-controlled machine to incorporate class selection, automatic subtraction and printing of a net positive or negative balance. Dating to 1928, this machine exemplifies the transition from tabulating to accounting machines. The Type IV could list 100 cards per minute.
IBM 401: From the IBM Archives:
The 401, introduced in 1933, was an early entry in a long series of IBM alphabetic tabulators and accounting machines. It was developed by a team headed by J. R. Peirce and incorporated significant functions and features invented by A. W. Mills, F. J. Furman and E. J. Rabenda. The 401 added at a speed of 150 cards per minute and listed alphanumerical data at 80 cards per minute.
IBM 405 (photo): From the IBM Archives:
Introduced in 1934, the 405 Alphabetical Accounting Machine was the basic bookkeeping and accounting machine marketed by IBM for many years. Important features were expanded adding capacity, greater flexibility of counter grouping,, direct printing of the entire alphabet, direct subtractionand printing of either debit or credit balance from any counter. Commonly called the 405 "tabulator," this machine remained the flagship of IBM's product line until after World War II.
IBM 402
IBM 402
The IBM 402 and IBM 403 Accounting Machines were tabulating machines introduced by IBM in the late 1940s. The 402 could read punched cards at a speed of up to 150 cards per minute, while printing data at a speed of up to 100 lines per minute with 43 alpha-numerical type bars and 45 numerical type...
and 403, from 1948, were modernized successors to the 405
IBM 407
IBM 407
The IBM 407 Accounting Machine, introduced in 1949, was one of a long line of IBM tabulating machines dating back to the days of Herman Hollerith. It was the central component of any unit record equipment shop. In the late 1950s, the 407 was adapted as an input/output device on early computers,...
Introduced in 1949, it was later adapted to serve as an input/output peripheral for a number of early electronic calculators and computers. Its printing mechanism was used with the IBM 1130IBM 1130The IBM 1130 Computing System was introduced in 1965. It was IBM's least-expensive computer to date, and was aimed at price-sensitive, computing-intensive technical markets like education and engineering. It succeeded the IBM 1620 in that market segment. The IBM 1800 was a process control variant...
through the mid-1970s.
The IBM 407 Accounting Machine was withdrawn from marketing in 1976, signaling the end of the unit record era.
IBM 421
See also
- List of IBM products#Tabulators, Accounting machines
- British Tabulating Machine CompanyBritish Tabulating Machine CompanyThe British Tabulating Machine Company was a firm which manufactured and sold Hollerith unit record equipment and other data-processing equipment...
- Powers Accounting Machine CompanyPowers Accounting Machine CompanyPowers Accounting Machine Company was an early 20th century tabulating machine company. It was founded in 1911 in Newark, New Jersey and moved in 1914 to Brooklyn....
- Powers-Samas Accounting Machines LtdPowers-SamasPowers-Samas was a British company which sold unit record equipment. The company was in competition with the British Tabulating Machine Company , with which it eventually merged in 1959 to form International Computers and Tabulators...
aka. "Acc and Tab" - UNIVAC 1004 80/90 Card Processor
For early use of tabulators for scientific computations see
- Leslie ComrieLeslie ComrieLeslie John Comrie was an astronomer and a pioneer in mechanical computation.-Life:Leslie John Comrie was born in Pukekohe , New Zealand, on 15 August 1893....
- Wallace John EckertWallace John EckertWallace John Eckert was an American astronomer, who directed the Thomas J. Watson Astronomical Computing Bureau at Columbia University which evolved into the research division of IBM.-Life:...