pleted the count in only 5 hours. As a result of his systems adoption, an unofficial count of the 1890 population was announced only six weeks after the census was taken. Like the cards that Jacquard used for the loom, Hollerith’s punched cards also used stiff paper with holes punched at certain points. In his tabulating machine, roods passed through the holes to complete a circuit, which caused a counter to advance one unit. This capability pointed up the principal difference between the analytical engine and the tabulating machine; Hollerith was able to use electrical power rather than mechanical power to drive the device. Hollerith, who had been a statistician with the Census Bureau, realized that the punched card processing had high potential for sales. In 1896, he started the Tabulating Machine Company, which was very successful in selling machines to railroads and other clients. In 124, this company merged with two other companies to form the International Business Machines Corporation, still well known today as IBM. IBM, Aiken & Watson For over 30 years, from 1924 to 1956, Thomas Watson, Sr., ruled IBM with an iron grip. Before becoming the head of IBM, Watson had worked for the Tabulating Machine Company. While there, he had a running battle with Hollerith, whose business talent did not match his technical abilities. Under the lead of Watson, IBM became a force to be reckoned with in the business machine market, first as a purveyor of calculators, then as a developer of computers. IBM’s entry into computers was started by a young person named Howard Aiken. In 1936, after reading Babbage’s and Lovelace’s notes, Aiken thought that a modern analytical engine could be built. The important difference was that this new development of the analytical eng...
