We’re in Lyon, near the Croix Rousse district – the silk-weaving center of old Lyon. You remember from last time who lived here – the Canuts. At the turn of the 19th century, things in this area were changing fast. Joseph Marie Jacquard had just invented his loom, which would revolutionize the textile industry. On one hand, it was just a loom, but on the other hand, it was one of those inventions like the printing press that really changed things.
The Jaquard Loom
Jacquard’s loom used plates with holes punched in them to select which hooks could pop up to grab a strand of silk, and which ones were blocked for a given row. The plates were strung together like rungs on a ladder. (You can see them at the top of the loom in the picture).
As the sequence of plates was pulled along, step by step, the desired pattern would start to emerge on the item being woven. It worked so well that Jacquard looms are still used today. It turned out that the idea of using plates with holes punched in them to make a process faster and more repeatable was a big deal. Do you wanna know why? Well…OK.
Around the turn of the last century, the U.S. Census Bureau had a big problem. The census, by law, had to be taken every ten years. But America was growing literally faster than people could count. It had taken seven years to tabulate the data for the 1880 census. The 1890 census was expected to take thirteen years to tabulate, basically making the whole exercise a waste of time. Luckily for the Census Bureau, they had hired a smart, (and probably very nerdy) guy named Herman Hollerith.
Enter Herman Hollerith
Hollerith thought he could “automate” the tabulating process the same way that Jacquard had automated the weaving process, but he couldn’t quite figure out how. His breakthrough came when he got the idea to combine the Jacquard loom concept with something he saw being used on a railroad train. Passengers were given tickets with a short list of physical attributes on them – male/female, hair color, thin/medium/stout, short/medium/tall, etc. When they bought their ticket, they punched a hole next to each appropriate attribute. That way, no one else could use their ticket. (Unless they looked just like ‘em).
These were two relatively new ideas…
· A way to give instructions to a machine by using “punch cards”, (as in the Jacquard loom), and…
· A new way to store information, i.e., “data,” which was to use punched cards, (as in the train tickets).
Hmmmm… Can you imagine the big ‘ol light bulb that must have gone off in Herman Hollerith’s head when he put those two ideas together? Yikes!
Census Problem Solved
He went to work right away, applying these ideas to the census problem. He managed to build what he called a “tabulating machine” to process data for the 1890 census. The census was, of course, done in record time.
I don’t know how much of a bonus Hollerith received from the Census Bureau, but apparently it wasn’t that much, because he quit and started his own company. He named it the Hollerith Tabulating Machine Corporation. Never heard of it? That’s because smart, nerdy guys don’t always make the best businessmen.
It wasn’t long before the Hollerith Tabulating Machine Corporation was in financial trouble. But fortunately for Hollerith, the company was rescued by a savvy investor who bought it. He combined it with a couple of other small companies, and hired a guy named Thomas Watson to run the combined operation
That investor must have known what he was doing, because the new company started to do pretty well. Thomas Watson, the guy who had been put in charge, decided to give it new name: International Business Machines, otherwise known as IBM. Well, I guess they DID do pretty well, didn’t they?
And you know what? IBM, (and everyone else), used punch cards to enter instructions and data into its computers for many a year. You may remember punch cards that would often say, “do not, fold, spindle, or mutilate.” (Apparently if you mutilated the card, it wouldn’t work so well, eh? Honh honh!)
Well, that was fun little excursion. And what do you know? It’s already time for lunch!
To be continued…
