The Babbage blockage and after
Although Charles Babbage only tinkered with different design ideas for an analytical engine and never built one, he did suggest that punch cards would be used for the storage of data. This prevented an American entrepreneur, Herman Hollerith, from claiming the patent rights on using cards for file storage.
Hollerith, after perfecting his first line of electromechanical machines which included a punch, a tabulating machine to process the data punched on cards, and a sorting machine, formed a company, the Tabulating Machine Corporation. It had an uncertain start and might have collapsed if an experienced business manager by the name of Thomas Watson had not been hired. One of Watson’s moves was to change the company’s name to International Business Machine, now better known by its acronym IBM.
The original card size used for file storage, as invented by Herman Hollerith, has remained the same, seven and three-eighths by three and a quarter inches. Before 1929 this was the standard size for most US banknotes. It is said that Hollerith chose these dimensions to be able to store the cards in boxes made for the Treasury Department.
Originally the code used for data card recording in the 1890 census had 22 columns which had eight punch positions each. As the need for more information to be stored on these cards grew, higher density formats came into being and by the end of the 1920s the standard format was 45 columns of round holes with 12 punch positions per column. How file storage has changed!
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