Use of Punched Cards by Hollerith

A step in the direction of automated computing was the development of punched cards, which were first successfully used with computers in year 1890 by Herman Hollerith (left) and James Powers, who worked for  US. Census Bureau. They have developed devices that could read the information that had been drilled in the cards automatically, without the human help. Because of this, reading errors were reduced significantly, work flow increased and most importantly stacks of punched cards could be used as easily/with no trouble accessible memory of almost unlimited size. Moreover, different problems could be stored on different stacks of the cards and accessed when needed.

These great advantages were seen by the commercial companies and soon led to the development of improved punch-card using computers developed by International Business Machines (IBM), Remington (the same people that make shavers), Burroughs, and other the corporations. These computers used electro-mechanical devices in which electrical power offered mechanical motion like turning the wheels of an adding machine. Such systems included characteristics to:

•   feed in a specific number of cards automatically
•  add, multiply, and kind
•  feed out cards with punched results

As to compared to today’s machines, these computers were slow, usually processing 50-220 cards per minute, each card holding about 80 decimal characters (numbers). At the time, however, punched cards were a massive step forward. They offered a means of I/O, and memory storage on a vast scale.

For more than 50 years after their first make use of, punched card machines did most of the world’s first business computing, and considerable amount of the computing work in science.

A Little History About The Great Scientist

Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) was born at Stagira in Thrace. His father, a physician at the Macedonian court, died while Aristotle was young. At the age of 17 Aristotle went to Athens to become a student at Plato's Academy and remained for twenty years as a student and colleague. After Plato's death, Aristotle taught for three years in Asia Minor and spent another three years at Mytilene. Then he became tutor for about eight years to the young Macedonian pence mi who was to become Alexander the Great.

Upon Alexander's accession to the throne in 336 B.C. Aristotle returned to Athens. There he founded a school known as the Lyceum which soon outshone Plato's Academy, Indeed the Lyceum had many more of the characteristics of a modem university. It promoted research and intellectual exchange as well as teaching. It included a "Temple of the Muses," several lecture rooms, and a library and map room. These were set in a large garden where masters and students walked while discussing their subjects. (Members of the school came to be known as Peripatetics, from the Greek word meaning "to walk about.") It is said that Aristotle lectured to his students in the morning and in the afternoon offered lectures to which the general public was invited.

Many of Aristotle's earlier works and notes were lost. Only a small part remains of what must have been a more complete work on education. The works that have come down to us were preserved by his successor as head of the Lyceum and later compiled in Rhodes. His works were rediscovered in the 13th Century from Arabic versions.

Nicomachean Ethics was named for Aristotle's son, Nicomachus. The Politics is based on Aristotle's compilation and study of 158 Greek city-state constitutions as well as his own direct experience in politics. Like Plato, Aristotle is vitally concerned with the relationship between education and government. He sees the cornerstone of the ideal state as being in the training and guidance of the young. Being in the training and guidance of the young.