Quote:
Originally Posted by ed good
punch cards in 1938? how cool was that?
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the 1880 census took seven years to compile, there was a good chance the 1890 would not be done before the 1900 started, to speed it up, the punch card concept (originally for programming looms) was proposed by Hermann Hollerith, this kicked off the Tabulating Machine Company which became IBM about 20 years later.
odd fact -- the size of the card had to be comfortable to handle - so it was matched to the old greenback paper money