Episode 1 of 2
Patent Issuance
- When
- January 8, 1889
- Where
- United States
Hollerith was issued U.S. Patent 395,782 on January 8, 1889, for his electric tabulating machine.
The patent described a method of compiling statistics using holes punched in sheets of electrically non-conducting material and counting them with mechanical counters operated by electro-magnets. This invention marked the beginning of mechanized binary code and semiautomatic data processing systems.
Sources
- Herman Hollerith Wikipedia, revision of 2026-02-24
Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.