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Wiki Entry #1 Herman Hollerith

IBM is currently one of the largest global technological brands in the world. This power-house of a company carries its history all the way back to the nineteenth-century. From business computers from personal computers, Herman Hollerith was the man who began a revolution that still affects our lives greatly today. What would begin as electrical connections to trigger the calculations of millions of pieces of data, would eventually turn into the modern computer: a technological advancement common seen in almost every American's home.

Although his original plan may have been far fetched from the at home device seen so frequently in our homes, Hollerith's goal was to aid the calculations of the 1890 U.S. Census. The original methods of collecting Census data were done by hand, and as seen in 1880, took as long as 8 years to calculate. With the American population rapidly expanding, the 1890 calculations would have taken substantially longer than the 1880 Census (Aul, 1972). To Hollerith and the U.S. Census office, there was only one option: to calculate the numbers more quickly and efficiently. He entered a contest proposed by the U.S. Census bureau. Herman Hollerith rose to the occasion. As proposed in his PhD thesis, Herman presented the idea of his Hollerith desk, also known as the tabulating machine. This revolutionary machine could detect the location of holes on each Census card, and consequently tally the overall numbers and characteristics of the tabulations. (Hollerith,1889). Herman won the contest, and it was a great success. The Hollerith Desk proved to provide faster statistics at a cheaper cost for processing. In turn, the Census calculations only took 3 years, (as opposed to 8 in the 1880 Census) and saved nearly 5 million dollars doing so.

Shortly after his great success, in 1896, Herman founded the Tabulating Machine Company in Washington, DC. He opened a shop and began leasing punch cards and tabulators to government businesses for the 1900 Census. Understanding that The U.S. Census Bureau would have to pay whatever he charged to produce the calculations, he raised his prices for use of the Hollerith Machines. However, he began asking for such high prices for the use of his technology that the Census bureau began exploring other options ("History: Herman Hollerith). The Census Bureau gave Hollerith an ultimatum to either cut his prices or they would make and improve the machines themselves. Hollerith refused. (Aul, 1972). In a time where patent restrictions and lawsuits were easier to slip past, Census Bureau employees were able to create their own, more advanced tabulating machines, just in time for the 1910 census. Herman Hollerith's company was nearly driven off the market. Outraged, Herman wrote in letters and newspapers to the President threatening to sue for infringement of his patent. After seven years, he his legal battle to the government and the lawsuit was destroyed.

Despite of the lawsuit battle, In 1911, Hollerith and four other corporations merged to form the Computing Tabulating Recording Company. Hollerith was the company's consulting engineer until reaching retirement in 1921. In 1924, the Computing Tabulating Recording Company changed it's name to International Business Machine, also known as IBM. Today, IBM serves as an enormous corporation helping people achieve the same goals Herman Hollerith once did. He revolutionized the idea that machines could producing faster, more efficient ways of achieving data (History: Herman Hollerith). Despite the modern development of computers during the twentieth and twenty-first century, versions of Hollerith's original card tabulating machine still has its place in modern data processing.

Hollerith was a true innovator of his time. In many ways, he set the state for the beginning of machines and computers creating a faster and more efficient way to get things done. He was able to conceive the idea that if engineered correctly, a machine could be programmed to the produce work of a human, in a less time-consuming and more cost-efficient manor. He looked to the future as a chance to make progressions in the way the world works; he realized that computer machinery was destined to grow and impact the world in a huge way. Today, nearly 130 years after the creation of the Tabulation Machine, Hollerith's legacy still lives on in one of the the world's largest information technology corporations.

References

Aul, William R. "IBM Archives: Herman Hollerith." IBM - United States.(Nov 1972). Web. 29 May 2010. <http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/builders/builders_hollerith.html>.

"History: Herman Hollerith." Census Bureau Home Page. Web. 29 May 2010. <http://www.census.gov/history/www/census_then_now/notable_alumni/herman_hollerith.html>.

Hollerith, Herman, "An Electric Tabulating System", The Quarterly, Columbia University School of Mines, Vol.X No.16 (Apr 1889), pp.238-255. Retrieved from <http://www.columbia.edu/acis/history/hh/index.html>.29 May 2010.