> More like 1880s, Phil. The card was invented by him, for the sole purpose of tabulating the mountain of data from the census from that year. The machines that he designed went on to build one portion of IBM's industries.
If you bother to click on the link I posted: >> http://www.columbia.edu/acis/history/hollerith.html You'll a complete history of Hollerith. The first sentences are: "After receiving his Engineer of Mines (EM) degree, Hollerith worked on the 1880 US census, a laborious and error-prone operation that cried out for mechanization. After some initial trials with paper tape, he settled on punched cards (pioneered in the Jacquard loom) to record information, and designed special equipment to tabulate the results. His designs won the competition for the 1890 US census." And if you take the trouble to scroll down a little, you'll find the 80-column rectangular hole punched card we were using in teh 1970s was introduced in 1928. -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.com +44 7785 302 803 +49 173 6242039
