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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Punch Card Probe
- Description
- This cylindrical metal stainless steel rod is about 8" long and resembles a crochet hook. The metal is serrated along the middle part of the rod. One end is hooked, the other is flattened and U-shaped. The donor worked with tabulating machines and then computer equipment from the 1940s into at least the 1960s.
- Reportedly the hook was used to line up punched cards and the flattened end to complete holes that had not punched properly.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1950
- 1950, roughly
- ID Number
- 2006.3088.01
- nonaccession number
- 2006.3088
- catalog number
- 2006.3088.01
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
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Punch Card Used at the Southern Railway Company
- Description
- Herman Hollerith began manufacturing tabulating machines to compile statistics to the U.S. Bureau of the Census. The nation only compiles a census every ten years, so Hollerith sought business from foreign governments and from commercial customers.
- As early as 1895, the New York Central began using tabulating equipment to track goods moved by the railroad. Hollerith radically redesigned the punch card, putting information in columns with the numbers from 0 to 9. Several columns of numbers comprised a field, which contained information on a single matter. By 1907, the Central was an established customer and other railroads adopted machine accounting. The Southern Railway Company used this 45-column card. It has fields for the date, the receiving station, the waybill number, the code, the forwarding station, the junction point, "Com.", "C.L.", freight, charges, and prepaid amounts.
- Reference:
- G. D. Austrian, Herman Hollerith: Forgotten Pioneer of Information Processing, New York: Columbia University Press, 1982, pp. 111–141, 250–251.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1910
- 1910, roughly
- 1910 roughly
- maker
- Tabulating Machine Company
- ID Number
- MA.317982.01
- accession number
- 317982
- catalog number
- 317982.01
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
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Card Showing Images of Remington Rand Univac Punched Cards
- Description
- This wallet-sized card shows punched cards on both sides. One is a ninety-column card with round holes, the other an eighty-column card with rectangular holes. The image of the ninety-column card has text along the left side that reads: Printed in U. S. A. REMINGTON RAND. The image of the eighty-column card has text along the left side that reads: Printed in U. S. A. REMINGTON RAND U-2173.
- Remington Rand tabulating machines had used ninety-column punched cards. By 1959, Remington Rand computers could use either ninety-column punched cards, punched with round holes, or eighty-column cards, punched with rectangular holes. The latter form of card had been introduced by IBM. This small card shows the choices.
- Reference:
- Gille Associates, Inc., The Punched Card Data Processing Annual, 1, 1959, pp. 43-47.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1955
- ca 1959
- author
- Remington Rand Univac. Division of Sperry Rand
- ID Number
- 1997.3012.04.06
- nonaccession number
- 1997.3012
- catalog number
- 1997.3012.04.06
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
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IBM Punch Card Gauge
- Description
- This gray metal instrument checked the "registration" or alignment of a card punch. Its surface is marked and numbered like an IBM punch card, with 80 columns of numbers. A sample punched card, held in place by three protrusions, fit over the surface and was compared to the rectangles below. Machines out of registration could then be reported.
- A mark on the bottom reads: MFG. BY I.B.M. Another mark there reads: GAUGE CARD FACE UP.
- The device fits in a brown cardboard envelope that is covered with cellophane. A mark on the envelope reads: 450550.
- This is a gauge for an IBM 5081 punch card and a related card punch. It was used at the University of Pittsburgh in Professor Robert A. McConnell’s research on parapsychology.
- For a related card, see 1990.0113.03.
- Reference:
- Accession File.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1960s
- maker
- IBM
- ID Number
- 1990.0113.01
- catalog number
- 1990.0113.01
- accession number
- 1990.0113
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
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