![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wkiri.com\/comphist\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/1890template.jpg\")
<\/a>1890 punch-card template for Pantograph<\/p><\/div>\n
Punched cards were used to input data. These were put in the machine which interpreted them. We thought that it was interesting that the machine had constraints on what would be considered valid data. These constraints included that cards could only be put in one way. This was done by making one of the corners of the card cut at an angle. This way the card could only be putting the reader one way. Another restraint was that the card was considered invalid if two mutually exclusive things were entered. So for example if male and female were selected the card was considered invalid. Also, if the user was only looking at one type of cards (males for instance) if another type of cards (females for example) was inputted it would be tossed out.<\/p>\n
<\/a>Woman operating a Pantograph<\/p><\/div>\n
Cards were punched through a pantograph, which was basically a template through which holes were punched. The machine was composed of a tabulator and a sorter. Click here<\/a> for some good images of the machine. The tabulator counted up everything by lowering down a tray with pins attached to it; if there were was a hole where the pin was it would go through the hole into a cup of liquid mercury. The mercury acted as a very good conductor and would make an electrical current. Part of the reason mercury was used is that the whole device was hooked up to a battery (they didn\u2019t have a power grid during this time), so the voltage across the device was very poor. The sorter flipped open the bin to put in the card, but someone still had to manually put each card in the sorter.<\/p>\n 2. Why was it necessary for Hollerith to make this machine<\/span><\/p>\n With the 1890 census it would not be able to finish the census before the next census (in 10 years). The 1880 one took 7 years to complete and there were more people in 1890 than 1880. For the 1890 census there was a race to see what method\/machine could do the best, which would be used for the next census. One was Hollerith\u2019s machine, one was a chip method which used different colored paper, and one was the slip method which used different colored ink. They had a race in which they had to process 10,000 cards. The chip method took 110.933 hours for transcription and 44.683 hours for tabulation, the slip method took 144.4167 hours for transcription and 55.367 hours for tabulation, and Hollerith\u2019s method took 72.45 hours for transcription and 5.467 hours for tabulation. So, that makes Hollerith’s method a little over twice as fast as the chip method and a little over two and a half times as fast as the slip method.<\/p>\n We talked also about how single-minded Hollerith was. Hollerith only thought of one use for his machine: the census, and didn\u2019t consider his machine\u2019s usefulness for other scenarios, such as other data entry.<\/p>\n Next we went through an activity to see how long it would take for our hometown\u2019s census to be processed back in the day. With Hollerith\u2019s machine it took 25 seconds\/person for transcription and 2 seconds\/person for tabulation.<\/p>\n Example for my hometown: Sherwood, OR<\/strong><\/p>\n Population 18,194<\/strong><\/p>\n Transcription<\/span>=25*18194=4.55E5 seconds=7.58E3 minutes=1.26E2 hours=5.26 days<\/strong><\/p>\n Tabulation<\/span>=2*18194=3.64E4 seconds=6.065E2 minutes=10.1 hours<\/strong><\/p>\n Total<\/span>=1.36E2 hours=5.67 days<\/strong><\/p>\n We then talked about why the US was able to set up new things like the machine for the census, when Europe had just kept with people doing the census. One of the reasons is that the US had just gotten out of the civil war and was really far behind Europe, so the US was open to innovation. Another reason was that it would theoretically save time and money. However, for the years it saved the census, they spent it doing even further analysis on it! In the end, they ended up spending twice as much money as the 1880 census!<\/p>\n