Lecture 4: Mechanising the Office. History of Computing. Today s Topics. History of Computing Clearing Houses (1)

Transcription

1 Lecture 4: Mechanising the Office based on Campbell-Kelly s Book Chapter 1 Today s Topics Clearing Houses The Clearing Process The 1890 Census The tally system Herman Hollerith The Hollerith Machine The rise of the female workforce Technological Change Slide 1 Clearing Houses (1) In Babbage s time large-scale information processing was highly unusual Ordinary offices of the 1820s did not have large clerical staffs. Hardly any office machinery Adding machines a novelty Typewriter not yet invented The Equitable Society of London had an office staff of 8 clerks, using quills and paper. Slide 2 Clearing Houses (2) In England there was just one large-scale data processing organisation The Bankers' Clearing House in the City of London, An organisation that processed the cheques being used in commerce. Babbage wrote an account of it. Slide 3 1

2 Before 1770, Clearing Houses (3) A "walk clerk," took cheques to the issuing Bank to be exchanged for cash. In the 1770s, clerks would meet at the same time in the Five Bells Public House on Lombard Street. There they performed all the exchanging of cheques and cash in one "clearing room." Saved walking time and avoided robbery. Slide 4 Clearing Houses (4) It also brought to light that the amount of cash needed for settlement was simply the difference between the two amounts owed This was usually far less than the total amount of all the cheques. In the early 1830's, the banks jointly built a Clearing House at Lombard Street Slide 5 Babbage s Description In a large room in Lombard Street, about thirty clerks from the several London bankers take their stations, in alphabetical order, at desks placed round the room; each having a small open box by his side, and the name of the firm to which he belongs in large characters on the wall above his head. From time to time other clerks from every house enter the room, and, passing along, drop into the box the cheques due by that firm to the house from which this distributor is sent Charles Babbage Slide 6 2

3 The Clearing Process Clerks exchanged cheques and entered the details in ledgers. At 4pm the settlements between the banks would begin. The clerk for each bank would total all cheques received from other banks total all cheques presented to other banks. The difference between would then be either paid out or collected. The Clearing House was an example of the "division of mental labour," comparable with de Prony's table-making project and Babbage s Difference Engine. Slide 7 The 1890 Census Before the Civil War the only American dataprocessing bureaucracy of any importance was the Bureau of the Census in Washington, D.C. The population census was established by an Act of Congress in 1790 to determine the "apportionment" of members of the House of Representatives. Early census data processing was very small scale, no records exist of how it was organised. Slide 8 U.S. Population Census Population 17.1 m 31.4 m?? Clerks ?? 1495 Slide 9 3

4 The tally system A tally clerk used a large tally sheet (like a manual Spreadsheet) Examine each census form Put a check mark in the appropriate cell of the grid. Count the number of check marks in each of the cells Write the result at the side in red ink. Total all the red-inked numbers Enter results on a consolidation sheet The work of the census clerks was tedious beyond belief Slide 10 Herman Hollerith Herman Hollerith ( ) developed a mechanical system for census data processing Commercialised his invention by establishing the Tabulating Machine Company in 1896 laid the foundations of Hollerith was able to exploit his inventions and establish a major industry. Hollerith grew up in New York and attended On graduation he worked at the Census Bureau. Slide 11 Hollerith s Big Idea Hollerith's key idea was to record the census return for each individual as a pattern of holes on punched paper tape or a set of punched cards, In later years Hollerith would reminisce on the origins of the idea: "I was travelling in the West and I had a ticket with what I think was called a punch photograph. [The conductor] punched out a description of the individual, as light hair, dark eyes, large nose, etc. So you see, I only made a punch photograph of each person." Slide 12 4

5 A fragment of the 1890 Census The Competition Superintendent of the Census Robert Porter set up a competition to design a new processing method in 1888 Three entrants, all using cards or paper slips different coloured inks different coloured cards and Herman Hollerith s Tabulating Machine Entrants had to demo their proposal by processing the 10,491 returns from the 1880 census of St Louis Hollerith was a only little faster on card production, but 10 times faster on tabulation (image: US Census Office). Slide 13 Result of the Trials For recording the data the Hollerith system was little faster than the manual systems. For tabulation it was up to ten times as fast as the rival systems. Moreover, once the cards had been punched, the more tabulations that were required the better the Hollerith system would prove. A punch-card template from a Pantographic punch used the 1890 US census (image: US Library of Congress ). Slide 14 The Hollerith Machines (1) Tabulating Machine and Sorting Box Cards processed 1 by 1 Placed in a press comprising 288 retractable spring-loaded pins Pins passing through holes dipped into a small cup of mercury and completed a circuit Slide 15 1

6 The Hollerith Machines (2) The circuit incremented some subset of 40 counters opened a compartment of the Sorting Box e.g. one counter and box might be set up for male, one for female Actual counts were designed to use all 40 counters and as many boxes as possible 80 clerks operated machines at any given time, Hollerith supervised Slide 16 The Hollerith Machines (3) Reduced cost and improved quality and quantity of information gained Final cost $11.5 million, estimated saving of $5 million No real technical problems...except sabotage: operators would suck the mercury out of the machines with eye droppers and throw it away to get a rest Slide 17 The dignity of the Republic! On 16 August 1890, six weeks into the processing of the census, the grand total of 62,622,250 was announced. But this was not what the allegedly fastest-growing nation in the world wanted to hear: a great many people who had made up their minds that the dignity of the republic could only be supported on a total of 75,000,000. Martin " Slip Shod Work Has Spoiled the Census" " Useless Machines" Slide 18 2

7 After the Census The Tabulating Machine Co. (TMC) was formed in 1896, and equipped the 1890 census, but lost its relationship with the Census Bureau in 1905 Hollerith s Automatics stayed in production for a further 20 years keypunch + tabulator + sorter 30 customers in 1908, 100 in 1911 promoted integrated information systems TMC merged with the Computing Scale Company and International Time Recording Company to form the Computing Tabulating Recording Company in 1911, later IBM Slide 19 Rise of the female workforce Recording all the data onto the cards was a task that kept the seven hundred card punches in almost constant operation. Female labour was heavily used for the first time in the census Processed by the census machines each did the work of twenty tally clerks Women Insurance Workers, Newark, 1895 Courtesy, Newark Public Library. In the 1890s, the Prudential Insurance Company in Newark was the state's first largescale employer of women as office workers. In this photograph, women office workers are shown hand writing insurance policies under the guidance of a male supervisor. Slide 20 Technological Change America was not a first-mover No existing large-scale manual systems British never cost-effective to reengineer the office system No typewriters pre 1900 No advanced office machinery pre 1915 America was a leader in using office technology Computerised in the 1950s America was gadget-happy! Processing the 2002 Census (image: US Census Office). Slide 21 3