- published: 23 Dec 2007
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Herman Hollerith (February 29, 1860 – November 17, 1929) was an American inventor who developed an electromechanical punched card tabulator to assist in summarizing information and, later, accounting. He was the founder of The Tabulating Machine Company that was consolidated in 1911 with three other companies to form the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company, later renamed IBM. Hollerith is regarded as one of the seminal figures in the development of data processing. His invention of the punched card tabulating machine marks the beginning of the era of semiautomatic data processing systems, and his concept dominated that landscape for nearly a century.
Herman Hollerith was born the son of German immigrant Prof. Georg Hollerith from Großfischlingen (near Neustadt an der Weinstraße) in Buffalo, New York, where he spent his early childhood. He entered the City College of New York in 1875, graduated from the Columbia University School of Mines with an "Engineer of Mines" degree in 1879 at age 19, and completed his Ph.D. there in 1890. In 1882 Hollerith joined the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he taught mechanical engineering and conducted his first experiments with punched cards. He eventually moved to Washington, D.C., living in Georgetown, with a home on 29th Street and a factory for manufacturing his tabulating machines at 31st Street and the C&O Canal, where today there is a commemorative plaque installed by IBM. He died in Washington D.C. of a heart attack.
Actors: Geraint Wyn Davies (actor), Stafford Williamson (actor),
Plot: A series of supposedly true stories about fantastic, but little known, events in history. Frequent subjects involved clever con artists, fortunes gained and lost overnight, and unbelievable coincidences. All of which actually happened, or "so the story goes."
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