Herman Hollerith, then at the
U.S. Census Bureau devised a tabulating system that included cards (
Hollerith card, later Punched card), a punch for holes in them representing data, a tabulator and a sorter. The system was tested in computing mortality statistics for the city of Baltimore. Hollerith's
Tabulating Machine Company merged with two other firms to form the
Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company, later renamed
IBM. The punch-card and tabulation machine business remained the core of electronic data processing until the advent of electronic computing in the 1950s (which then still rested on punch cards for storing information). to a customer, on the introduction of electronic data processing factory Wolfsburg, 1973 The first commercial business computer was developed in the
United Kingdom in 1951, by the
J. Lyons and Co. catering organization. This was known as the '
Lyons Electronic Office' – or LEO for short. It was developed further and used widely during the 1960s and early 1970s. (Lyons formed a separate company to develop the LEO computers and this subsequently merged to form
English Electric Leo Marconi and then
International Computers Limited. By the end of the 1950s punched card manufacturers, Hollerith,
Powers-Samas,
IBM and others, were also marketing an array of computers. Early commercial systems were installed exclusively by large organizations. These could afford to invest the time and capital necessary to purchase hardware, hire specialist staff to develop
bespoke software and work through the consequent (and often unexpected) organizational and cultural changes. At first, individual organizations developed their own software, including
data management utilities, themselves. Different products might also have 'one-off' bespoke software. This fragmented approach led to duplicated effort and the production of management information needed manual effort. High hardware costs and relatively slow processing speeds forced developers to use resources 'efficiently'. Data storage formats were heavily compacted, for example. A common example is the removal of the century from dates, which eventually led to the '
millennium bug'. Data input required intermediate processing via
punched paper tape or
punched card and separate input to a repetitive, labor-intensive task, removed from user control and error-prone. Invalid or incorrect data needed correction and resubmission with consequences for data and account reconciliation. Data storage was strictly serial on paper tape, and then later to
magnetic tape: the use of data storage within readily accessible memory was not cost-effective until
hard disk drives were first invented and
began shipping in 1957. Significant developments took place in 1959 with IBM announcing the
1401 computer and in 1962 with
ICT (International Computers & Tabulators) making delivery of the
ICT 1301. Like all machines during this time the processor together with the
peripherals – magnetic tape drives, disks drives, drums, printers and card and paper tape input and output required considerable space in specially constructed air conditioned accommodation. Often parts of the punched card installation, in particular sorters, were retained to present the card input to the computer in a pre-sort form that reduced the processing time involved in sorting large amounts of data. But the full realization of these benefits had to await the arrival of the next generation of computers == Today ==