Talk:Tabulating machine

Nazi use in census

The use of tabulators in a census which the Zazis used to then identify people to exterminate seems just a bit distant from the topic and is unsourced. I'm trying to figure out what should be done with it but I'm coming to the conclusion it just should not be in this article. Dmcq (talk) 19:40, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

Oh I see its been removed. Good for them. Dmcq (talk) 19:43, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

IBM Propaganda

This article reads like it was written by IBM, no mention of Powers, Rand and other early devices, many of which were superior. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.206.73.37 (talk) 03:50, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

I don't see why you shouldn't add stuff about Powers, Rand etc. In general there seems to be a lot more material round about IBM's tabulators than Powers or Rand, I think because IBM had more continuity than Powers -> Remmington Rand -> Sperry Rand -> Unisys. I seem to remember reading somewhere that the archives relating to the [Remington Rand 409] for example are essentially completely lost. Certainly Powers machines were superior in a number of ways, they had printing tabulators before IBM for example. Hpengwyn (talk) 20:29, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Revise

Prior uses of machine-readable media had been for control (automatons, piano rolls, looms, ...), not data. "After some initial trials with paper tape, he settled on punched cards..."[2] I do not understand this line. If you click on looms you clearly see the Jacquard Head and punch cards. It reads like punch cards were used for control and not important but hollerith used them anyway. do you see it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 149.152.34.59 (talk) 19:14, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

Both control and data are important - and they are very different.

Lets say a punch in position 3 of a Jacquard card raises hook 3. That is all that punch will ever do. The Jacquard loom is an automaton (the word is more commonly used for toys/amusements) - a machine that executes a sequence of recorded commands. Such machines have existed for several thousand years.

A punch in column 3 of a Hollerith card does what? You don't know - indeed it might have a different effect each time it is read by a machine. And different machines can read that same card, same column 3 punch, with each machine taking different, meaningful action with that punch.

A punch in a Hollerith card is data; the machine determines what is done. A punch in the Jacquard card is a command directing the machine.

btw, the Jacquard loom does not read punched cards - it reads a paper tape. Long paper tapes have unfortunate properties - expensive to create, fragile, .... Jacquard invented, amongst other things, a very clever way to make a sturdy, repairable, paper tape - by punching cards (there was a machine to punch the cards from templates) and then tying the cards together (there was a machine to tie the cards together) to form a "chain of cards". If you look at Jacquard cards you will usually see two large holes at the left and right edges - those are the sprocket holes used by loom to draw the paper tape (now the chain of cards) through the looms reader. 69.106.232.2 (talk) 19:25, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Dragnet

In episodes of the original 1950s Dragnet TV show, when Joe Friday etc. are sometimes trying to track down suspects based on a few characteristics, there's a stock shot of thousands of cards shown going through a card-collator (not even a computer), obviously presented as the latest up-to-date gee-whiz technology (a little amusing from a 2010s perspective). AnonMoos (talk) 09:30, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

First computer bookkeepint by IBM Tabulator.

[I removed the text below that was recently added. It is not intelligible, apparently written by a non-native English speaker. It seems to describe a specific innovation using tabulating machines, but notability isn't clear. At the least, it needs to be translated and provided with reliable sources to be included in this article.--agr (talk) 21:05, 16 November 2011 (UTC)]

"The countable lettering is operation accountant the purpose of which is to check the good payment of the invoices. There exist two types of lettering : manual Lettering : This technique consisted in providing with the same letter ; the payments as well as the recorded writings is with the large book connected, on flying accounts mechanized or obtained by transfer (Obbo System) which they balanced. Thus in the event of needs, it was possible to recognize the writings balanced like carrying out of them the painful periodic manual revivals of the writings not well-read women. (Not balanced) conversational Lettering : The lettering of qualification of the entries is an invention of the Sixties which opened the way with the book-keeping on computer. It resembles of nothing traditional countable lettering. He was born in 1962 with the SACM of Mulhouse - France - and was recognized in 1965 following the rejection of Specifications IBM by Gilbert Bitsch, project manager of administrative and countable work. This one could oppose solutions to him which it had already implemented on tabulators IBM 421 - a punched-card tool. The schedule of conditions refused corresponded to the state of the art of the time which did not make it possible to hold of accountancy on computer. It abolished simply the concept of accounts to the profit of a questionable on request and manually purged history file on perforated cards. This solution thus did not make behavior of account and did not allow either the behavior of auxiliary accountancies by data processing. It made necessary the acquisition or the maintenance of accounting machines reserved because of their prohibitory costs to the only large companies. I.History of interactive computing lettering The first data-processing countable lettering was applied by the first conversational conversation mode of the history of data processing to the SACM of Mulhouse. It made it possible into 1965 to carry out the first positioning of the details of the last balance of an account of the history of accountancy on a tabulator 421 IBM. This lettering allowed the reject of the first accounting machine of the history of the mechanization of the accountancy which was carried out by a Boroughs machine in the Twenties of the XXe century. Those redundant since the arrival of the first tabulators established in Large companies. The first lettering of qualification of the writings was made on tabulator IBM 421 in 1962 for the auxiliary accountancy of the suppliers and in 1965 for the auxiliary accountancy of the customers and the various debtor-creditors. In its historical version of 1962 this lettering consisted with: - To codify by a " P" (Paid) data-processing accounts classified with accountancy. This " P" was to be registered opposite the lines of writings balanced in the column especially envisaged for this purpose."

First use of the term "Super Computing"

The article claims that the first use was in 1931. A search on books.google.com finds at least two older references: a 1930 book by Silas Bent and a 1926 book by non-profit organization promoting national defense.

Google gives a snippet from "Machine Made Man", by Silas Bent, 1930 (Farrar and Rinehart) concerning a ballistic calculation:

"... may influence the flight of the projectile, such as wind, muzzle velocity (in the case of these guns, half a mile a second), atmospheric density, and drift. A part of this super-computing machine is an electrical transmission system, which sends the data automatically to the guns. Then there is a height finder, an optical instrument which determines the altitude of the target. There is a listening ..."

Google doesn't give me more than that quote, and I cannot find more text than that. Google did find a review of "Machine Made Man" in an undated issue of "The Reading Lamp" column in "The Chemical Bulletin", vol. 17, p264. The scan is available from a northwestern.edu machine. The review starts:

"Machine Made Man, by Silas Bent (Farrar and Rinehart-1930), is a non-technical survey of the effects of the Industrial Age upon man. It includes all the necessities, the luxuries, and institutions of our present complex life, together with their historical developments. Like the other summarized knowledge books which have been in vogue the last few years, this will appeal to the layman who is too busy to seek knowledge at its original sources."

Going back to the book search, Google also found "National Defense, Volume 7" from the American Defense Preparedness Association, 1926, again talking about ordnance. It's much harder to read that excerpt, but I can make out:

"Fire Control for 3-Inch Antiaircraft Battery / A large number of fire control instruments for 3-inch guns was provided at Aber... This central station instrument is provided with two telescopic sights by means of which the target is followed accurately (?) in azimuth and angular height. The central station instrument, which is a super-computing machine,"

I have not been able to verify that the 1926 date is correct. I don't have access to either sources. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.252.39.192 (talk) 17:49, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the research. I took out the word "first."--agr (talk) 18:20, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

Conductors recording details

In the late 1880s Herman Hollerith, inspired by conductors using holes punched in different positions on a railway ticket to record traveler details such as gender and approximate age, invented the recording of data on a machine readable medium.

Do we have any sources for this? Why was it done? Martin of Sheffield (talk) 10:47, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

Tabulation machine was leased to the Nazis by IBM. To identify, race, lineage, occupation.

Please add that IBM leased the tabulation machine to the Nazis, per their request. To identify people by race, lineage, occupation. 47.147.223.153 (talk) 11:25, 3 February 2023 (UTC)