Computers & Business Machines

Tags for an IBM Tabulating Machine

Description

Attached to this paper tag by a piece of copper wire is a metal tag with the number 1345 etched on it. Also attached to the tag is a piece of regular wire with was probably used to attach the tag to the tabulator. Written on the front of the tag is this information: '10 counter machine on a Type 4 extended base for Dr. Wood of Columbia,Un. Built 1929 Engineers: Lake, Daly Lowcrantz

For a related object, see 1990.0693.01.

Location

Currently not on view

date made

1929

maker

IBM

ID Number

1990.0693.01.01

accession number

1990.0693

catalog number

1990.0693.01.01

Data Source

National Museum of American History

Model Relating to Powers Tabulating Equipment

Description

The wooden base of this model holds a metal container with a paper punch card that fits in it. A metal piece swings from a crosspiece above the card. The base also holds supports for another metal crosspiece. Three metal pieces rotate with this crosspiece. The base also holds two larger, facing metal rectangles. One rectangle has a plastic piece screwed to the top.

A mark on the right side of the punch card reads: POWERS ACCOUNTING MACHINE COMPANY (/) ACCOUNTS PAYABLE. A mark on the left side of the punch card reads: P1384. The punched holes are round.

A piece of paper pasted to the top of the base reads: This model represents my new (/) invention of a tabulator in connec- (/) tion with perforated cards, elimina- (/) ting a pin box of 540 pins and sub- (/) stitution forty-five levers instead. (/) Also eliminating connection box, with (/) both of these improvements the speed (/) will be doubled and such machine will (/) be small in size, cheaper to build, (/) more flexible and easier to manipulate. (/) August 19, 1924 (/) James Powers. Also signing the document were Fred J. Dole, Charles E. Whiteman and Achilles Rovegno, all of whom had associations with Francis H. Richards of New York, Powers’s patent attorney.

No patent corresponding to this invention has been found.

Location

Currently not on view

date made

1924

maker

James Powers

ID Number

1991.0871.03

accession number

1991.0871

catalog number

1991.0871.03

Data Source

National Museum of American History

IBM Statistical Tabulator

Description

The IBM statistical tabulator is a specially built IBM numeric tabulator, designed to correlate test results and produce scientific tables. It read data from punched cards and from entries in any of ten 10-digit counters. It also multiplied numbers together, summed the products, and printed these out. Wiring of a plugboard determined the precise sequence of operations performed.

In the late 1920s, Benjamin Wood, a young psychologist at Columbia University, wrote to several manufacturers requesting assistance in the design of equipment for scoring psychological tests. James D. Watson, president of IBM, offered his assistance in the form of standard IBM machines and the help of IBM engineers in designing special models like this one. The Columbia machine, as it was sometimes called, was used both in test grading and in the production of astronomical tables, long a concern of scientists. Although it was soon superseded by other IBM equipment, its success inspired Wood to consider other inventions, particularly machines that scored tests directly from forms marked in pencil, eliminating the need for punch cards. Such machines and score sheets would be used for decades. More generally, scientific use of tabulating equipment spread throughout the United States.

The large black machine has gold trim. On the left side at the top is a card hopper that has approximately 75 cards. A metal plate with a handle holds the cards to the back of the hopper. In front of the hopper is a bank of five rows of counter control switches, with ten switches in each row. The columns of switches are numbered from 1 to 10. A flat metal plate extends in front of the switches. Below this is the receiver for the hopper. At the front are three switches, one labeled "COUNTER CLEARING" and another, "HOPPER STOP." Next to the bank of switches is a dial labeled "AUTO TRANSFER." Next to it is a push button, and then a lever that may be set on "TAB" of "LIST." Below this lever are six additional switches. In front of these switches are three push buttons covered with a metal cap.

The next unit to the right is the printer, which has a carriage 52 cm. wide. The printing mechanism is at the front. The carriage supports a roll of paper 36 cm. wide. Next to the printer is a row of dials that extends to the right side of the machine. Each dial is numbered from 1 to 9, with a blank space between 9 and 1. The dials are grouped in five groups of 11, and visible through five small glass windows.

There is a second, recessed row of dials below the first, with an additional five glass windows. Below these dials is a plugboard that runs from under the printer on the right side. The top rows of holes are for control switches, banks, adding brushes, etc. Below them is a 5x10 matrix of holes for "COUNTER NO 1," another for "COUNTER NO 2," etc. Below each of these matrices is a 6x10 matrix of holes. The leftmost is for "TOP COUNTER NO 1," "TOP COUNTER NO 2," etc. Ten sets of holes are for counters and ten for top counters. Thirty-seven cables are plugged into the plugboard.

References:

J. F. Brennan, The IBM Watson Laboratory at Columbia University: A History, Armonk, N.Y.: IBM Corporation, 1971, pp. 3–5.

D. A. Grier, When Computers Were Human, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 205, esp. pp. 190–193.

Location

Currently not on view

date made

1929

maker

IBM

ID Number

1990.0693.01

catalog number

1990.0693.01

accession number

1990.0693

Data Source

National Museum of American History

Gang Punch Made by the British Tabulating Machine Company

Description

In the 1880s American engineer Herman Hollerith devised a system to compile statistical information by entering data on individuals onto punched cards, allowing holes in the cards to admit wires and complete electrical circuits, and using electric counters to accumulate totals.

Hollerith devised this kind of punch, which he called a gang punch, to punch data that was common to several cards. For data on a census, this might be the enumeration district. For payroll applications, it would be the date of payday.

In 1904 a British firm organized to lease Hollerith machines in Britain and much of the rest of the wold. A subcontractor manufactured punch cards. From the 1920s. the British Tabulating Machine Company manufactured punch card equipment itself. This gang punch is one of its products.

This punch has a 12x10 array of holes.The rows of holes are labeled Y, X, 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. Six metal cylinders fit into the holes for punching, with a manually operated press to push them down. Cards are fed and removed by hand, from right to left. On the left is a metal plate with zigzag rows of holes on its top front and top back edge. These may be used to indicate the position of the card before punching.

A tag on the right side of the punch under the card bed reads: THE (/) BRITISH TABULATING MACHINE Co (/) VICTORIA HOUSE, SOUTHHAMPTON ROW, LONDON, W.C.1 (/) GREAT BRITAIN AND U. S. A. - BRITISH BUILT. A stamp on the press reads: 5390.

References:

M. Campbell-Kelly, ICL: A Business and Technical History, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989.

H. Hollerith, "Quick Setting Press," U. S. Patent 1,193,390, August 1, 1916. The machine shown in this patent has levers for setting the pins. This is not true with this object.

Location

Currently not on view

date made

1920s

maker

British Tabulating Machine Company

ID Number

MA.320563

accession number

241402

catalog number

320563

Data Source

National Museum of American History

Powers Tabulating Machine Component

Description

This very small section of a Powers tabulating machine comes from the adding machine part of the device. It consists of two shaped metal pieces held together by a rivet such that one swings freely. It has no maker’s marks.

Reference:

Powers Accounting Machine Corporation, Powers Tabulating Equipment, Book 3, New York: Powers Accounting Machine Corporation, 1923, Plate 507, Plate 607 (AM Sec 150). This document is 1992.3215.03.

Location

Currently not on view

date made

1920s

maker

Powers Accounting Machine Corporation

ID Number

1991.3180.01

nonaccession number

1991.3180

catalog number

1991.3180.01

Data Source

National Museum of American History

Powers Tabulating Machine Components

Description

This object consists of two identical shaped steel pieces from the printer section of a Powers tabulating machine. Each carries ten pieces of type that fit into the arch of the piece. At the top is a 0, at the bottom a 9.

Powers took out patents for tabulating machines in the early 20th century. These pieces are similar but not identical to those shown in patents of 1917 and 1921, and to pieces from a Powers Accounting Machine Corporation parts catalog from 1923. They are more similar to drawings in a patent filed in 1926 by Joseph R. Merkle and assigned to Remington Rand, Inc., the successor firm to Powers Accounting Machine Company.

References:

Powers Accounting Machine Corporation, Powers Tabulating Equipment, Book 3, New York: Powers Accounting Machine Corporation, 1923, Plate 507, Plate 510. This document is 1992.3215.03.

James Powers, "Tabulator-Printer for Statistical Purposes," U.S. Patent 1,245,502, November 6, 1917.

James Powers, "Combined Perforating and Printing Tabulator Mechanism," U.S. Patent 1,388,299, August 23, 1921.

Joseph R. Merkle, "Tabulating Machine," U.S. Patent 1,884,072, October 25, 1932. This patent was filed March 27, 1926.

Location

Currently not on view

date made

ca 1926

ID Number

1991.3180.02

nonaccession number

1991.3180

catalog number

1991.3180.02

Data Source

National Museum of American History

U.S. Bureau of the Census Tabulating Machine

Description

From 1890 through 1950, information collected in the decennial United States census of population was punched onto cards and compiled using tabulating machines. At first the Bureau of the Census rented machines on the design of Herman Hollerith. Concerned by the high rental charges, it decided to develop tabulating equipment in its own shop.This tabulating machine was first used in the 1920 Census and then, after modification, in the 1930 Census.

The device accommodates 24-column cards. It has 60 four-position electromagnetic friction-driven counters with printing wheels and 50 electromagnetic relays, each with three contacts. The reading head contains individual wire brushes and contacts for each hole to be read. When a brush passes through a hole in a card, it encounters a contact and in turn activates the relays and counters.

References:

Accession File.

L. E. Truesdell, The Development of Punch Card Tabulation in the Bureau of the Census 1890–1940, Washington: U.S. Department of Commerce, 1965.

Location

Currently not on view

date made

1920

maker

U. S. Census Bureau

ID Number

MA.316863

accession number

229657

catalog number

316863

Data Source

National Museum of American History

Pantograph Card Punch Used at the United States Bureau of the Census

Description

This is a punch used for preparing punch cards for the United States Census of Occupations of 1920. It has a triangular open metal base that holds a plate at the front on which a celluloid plate marked like one of the punch cards used in this census, with appropriate holes, rests. Behind this is a support for a card to be punched. Reaching across the instrument from back to front is a long metal rod which has a punch toward the center and a point at the front that fits into the holes in the celluloid plate.

A mark on the plate reads: OCCUPATION 1920.

A punch similar to this one was used in the U.S. census of population of 1890, the first carried out with tabulating equipment. Other forms of card punch were introduced in 1910, but proved less satisfactory. The year 1920 was the last in which a pantograph punch was used in the U.S. Bureau of the Census.

Compare MA.312896.

Reference:

Leon E. Truesdell,The Development of Punch Card Tabulation in the Bureau of the Census 1890-1940, Washington: U.S. Department of Commerce, 1965, pp. 140–46, 160.

Location

Currently not on view

date made

1920

ID Number

2011.3121.01

nonaccession number

2011.3121

catalog number

2011.3121.01

Data Source

National Museum of American History

Sorter for U.S. Bureau of the Census Tabulating System

Description

From 1890 through 1950, information collected in the decennial U.S. census of population was punched onto cards and compiled using tabulating machines. At first, the Bureau of the Census rented machines on the design of Herman Hollerith. Concerned by the high rental charges, the Bureau decided to develop tabulating equipment in its own shop. This horizontal card sorter is one result of that effort.

The iron and steel instrument is designed for the mechanical, single-column sorting of 24-column cards. Cards are fed from the left.The device mechanically senses any one column at a time and sends cards to one of 12 pockets or, if no punch exists, into the thirteenth or reject pocket. A wooden shelf is at the front of the pockets and another one on the left side of the machine. A motor drives the sorter.

As presently stored, one crate contains the sorter, and the second contains a metal piece painted black that has 12 pockets that apparently fits below.

According to Museum records, the machine was first used in the processing of Vital Statistics in 1927 and then in the 1930 Census of Population. It was reconstructed in 1959.

References:

Accession File.

L. E. Truesdell, The Development of Punch Card Tabulation in the Bureau of the Census 1890–1940, Washington: U. S. Department of Commerce, 1965.

Location

Currently not on view

date made

1927

maker

U. S. Census Bureau

ID Number

MA.316862

accession number

229657

catalog number

316862

Data Source

National Museum of American History