Several people have mentioned there Hollerith punch cards fit nicely in pockets. While this was not by design, it is the result of an interesting coincidence.
The Hollerith card is the same size as a US dollar bill. The hope was that people would treat it as something of value and hence not fold, spindle, mutilate or spill coffee on. For those of you fortunate to own both a punch card and a US dollar bill you might do a short experiment and note the card is actually some what larger than the bill. The punch card has remained the same size wise. It did go double density changing from 45 columns to 80 and round holes to rectangles. Over time the US dollar has shrunk in size, value and capacity. Avram Friedman PS while the Hollerith card was intended to speed up census processing for 1890, 1900 and 1910 in true vapor ware fashion the associated hardware was delayed. Never the less the punch card resulted in these census being processed in record a time! A fine testament to standardized forms and knitting nettles. ----- Original Message ----- From: (IBM Mainframe Discussion List)<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Friday, June 08, 2007 8:35 AM Subject: Hollerith anniversary According to Wikipedia's "On this day...", Herman Hollerith received a patent for his punch card calculator on this day (8 June) in 1887. Go, Herman!! I still have a handful of blank cards that I liberated from a service bureau ca. 1985. I use them sometimes to write notes to myself (without punching them, though). They fix perfectly in my shirt pocket. Bill Fairchild Plainfield, IL ************************************** See what's free at http://www.aol.com<http://www.aol.com/>. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html<http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
