History of Computers: In the year 1886, Herman Hollerith had the idea of using punched cards to keep and transport information, a technology used up to the late 1970s.
Those punched cards were read electronically: the cards were transported between brass rods, and when there were holes in the cards, the rods made contact and a electric current could flow.

This device was constructed to allow the 1890 census to be placed in a table. This construction meant a great improvement as hand tabulation was projected to take more than a decade.

In 1896 the Tabulating Machine Company was founded by Hollerith. Twenty-eight years later, in 1924, after several take-overs the company became known as International Business Machines (IBM), a company which is well known nowadays. Everybody links the name of this company with the use of computers.

Herman Hollerith died at the age of 43 in 1929.