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The Hollerith Machine (census.gov)
29 points by bsou 3959 days ago
4 comments

Holleriths were also used to coordinate elements of the Holocaust[1].

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust

There's a beautiful exhibit of one of these in the Computer History Museum. Just saw it last weekend.

http://www.computerhistory.org/revolution/punched-cards/2/2

The Holleriths (later IBM Tabulators) were also used extensively in Bletchley Park and the Heliopolis station as part of the technique for cracking Italian Air codes - explaining why there's one or two knocking about in the National Museum of Computing in Bletchley.
There's a great segment in the documentary series Connections that discusses the Hollerith Machine: https://youtu.be/_mT_futz23s?t=2m37s