This website was created by Alymuhamad Walji. The section that I chose was Saving the Census.
In the late eighteen hundreds, America opened its arms to immigrants from around the world. Due to the excess immigrants, it was very difficult to tally the mandatory census’ that everyone in America had to complete. To solve this problem, Herman Hollerith "chose the punched card as the basis for storing and processing information."(Cruz, 2011, para 1)
This machine caught my attention because of the materials, algorithms and design used. To start off the process, holes were punched on punch cards. Each hole represented a tally that would be counted toward the final tally. The tabulating component of the machine was completed with electricity. A metal pin passed through a hole of the punch card which made contact with a conductor, mercury. This allowed electrons in the circuit to travel towards the load. The load was the tallying device which was used. The device consisted of clock-like dials which displayed the tallies.
I found this interesting because of the aspect of including punch cards and a relatively simple circuit which completed a task that made tallying ten times faster. In conclusion, Herman Hollerith’s machine which had the purpose of arranging data in a tabular form interested me due to its algorithm, use of circuits and overall design.
A contemporary equivalent of the tabulating machine include the Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software, OCR forms and optical scanners.
"Optical Character Recognition, or OCR, is a technology that enables you to convert different types of documents, such as scanned paper documents, PDF files or images captured by a digital camera into editable and searchable data."(What is OCR and OCR Technology, n.d., para 2) In this case, this means a the census would be scanned by optical scanners. Next, a computer program would convert what it sees on the OCR form through an optical scanner. Finally, the machine-encoded text would be displayed on a monitor. A similarity to Optical Character Recognition is Optical Mark Recognition(OMR). OMR is "the technology of electronically extracting intended data from marked fields, such as checkboxes and fill-infields, on printed forms."(Beal, n.d.,para 1) I believe that the programs of both OMR/OCR can be edited to allow the insertion of a census. This related to Herman Hollerith’s device because the tabulating device arranged data in the form of a table. OCR or OMR can use a OCR/OMR form, optical scanners and a program which can also perform the action of tabulating.
In conclusion, Optical Character Recognition or Optical Mark Recognition are contemporary equivalents of tabulating machines as they both have the power of tabulating. This can be done with optical scanners, OCR/OMR forms and a computer program.
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