Computers & Business Machines
Imagine the loss, 100 years from now, if museums hadn't begun preserving the artifacts of the computer age. The last few decades offer proof positive of why museums must collect continuously—to document technological and social transformations already underway.
The museum's collections contain mainframes, minicomputers, microcomputers, and handheld devices. Computers range from the pioneering ENIAC to microcomputers like the Altair and the Apple I. A Cray2 supercomputer is part of the collections, along with one of the towers of IBM's Deep Blue, the computer that defeated reigning champion Garry Kasparov in a chess match in 1997. Computer components and peripherals, games, software, manuals, and other documents are part of the collections. Some of the instruments of business include adding machines, calculators, typewriters, dictating machines, fax machines, cash registers, and photocopiers
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Counter from a Hollerith Tabulating Machine
- Description
- This is a single counter from a Hollerith tabulating machine. It has square brass pieces on top and bottom, with a brass mechanism in between. A paper-covered metal dial on top is divided around the edge into 100 equal parts. Two hands are on the face of the dial. Advancing the small hand by 100 (one revolution) advances the large hand by one. Hence the counter can read up to 9,999.
- A mark around the center of the dial reads: THE HOLLERITH (/) ELECTRIC TABULATING SYSTEM (/) PATENTED, 1889.
- Compare to the dials on MA.312895.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1890
- ID Number
- MA.335638
- catalog number
- 335638
- accession number
- 1977.0114
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
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Hollerith Tabulating Machine
- Description
- During the 1880s the engineer Herman Hollerith devised a set of machines for compiling data from the United States Census. Hollerith's tabulating system included a punch for entering data about each person onto a blank card, a tabulator for reading the cards and summing up information, and a sorting box for sorting the cards for further analysis. The tabulator is shown at the center in the photograph.
- Hollerith's tabulating system won a gold medal at the 1889 World's Fair in Paris, and was used successfully the next year to count the results of the 1890 Census. His inventions formed the starting point of a company that would become IBM.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- maker
- Hollerith, Herman
- ID Number
- MA.312895
- accession number
- 171118
- catalog number
- 312895
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
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Hollerith Card Sorter
- Description
- During the 1880s the engineer Herman Hollerith devised a set of machines for compiling data from the U.S. Census. Hollerith's tabulating system included a punch for entering data about each person onto a blank card, a tabulator for reading the cards and summing up information, and a sorting box for sorting the cards for further analysis.
- This third part of the system, the sorter, is shown on the right in the photograph. It is an oak box with 26 vertical compartments arranged in two rows. Each compartment has a brass cover that is held in place by an electric catch connected to the tabulator. The sorter is connected by a cable to the tabulator. Once a card is read by the tabulator, a compartment opens in the sorter, indicating where the card should be placed for further counting. The front and back sides of the sorter open so that one may remove stacks of cards from the compartments.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1890
- maker
- Tabulating Machine Company
- ID Number
- MA.312897
- accession number
- 171118
- catalog number
- 312897
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
