biography
pronunciation:
[holerith]
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1860–1929)
|
| biography:
| Engineer and computer inventor, born in Buffalo, New York, USA. Working as a statistician for the US census of 1880, he became aware of the need for automation in the recording and processing of vast amounts of data. Working first at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and then at the US Patent Office (1884–90), he invented a tabulating machine that was fed data via electrical contacts controlled by the holes in punch cards. His machine won a contest for the best data-processing equipment for the US census of 1890, and he organized the Tabulating Machine Co (1896) to make improved versions that soon were being used by other countries. His company merged with others to become the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Co (1911), which adopted the name of International Business Machines Corp (1924). Although he was early praised for revolutionizing statistical processing, it was only decades later that he was recognized as having anticipated the modern computer. |
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