From the early 20th century into the 1970s, Americans used punched cards to enter data into tabulating equipment and then electronic computers. This is an early key-operated punch, based on patents of ...

We think of punched cards as old-fashioned, but still squarely part of the computer age. Turns out, cards were in use way before they got conscripted by computers. Jacquard looms are one famous ...

On June 8, 1887, Herman Hollerith applied for US patent #395,781 for his punch card counting machine, a device considered to be among the foundations of the modern information processing industry and ...

Statistician and inventor Herman Hollerith became known as the father of modern automatic computation for his electric tabulating system, which revolutionized the US census. He was recruited to work ...

Credit: Maria Dryfhout/Shutterstock.com. This month, the U.S. Census Bureau undertakes the 24th national census, beginning with Census Day on April 1. Today's tools for data collection include the ...