Hollerith's First Design

Hollerith's first attempt at a counting machine was based on Jacquard's system. He used the hole punch concept along with a single continuous paper feed. The holes, lined in a double row, represented the element to be counted. For example, the presence of a hole in a given position in the row might indicate that a person is female, while another male; another native born, while the presence of a hole in another position might indicate foreign-born. Later, Hollerith's system would include provisions for combinations of holes to represent information.² In 1884, Hollerith described the method in this patent application, "Various statistical items for a given person are recorded by punching suitable holes in a line across the strip, being guided by letters on the guide plate.²"

When the roll was fed through the counting machine, the paper would pass over a drum. If a hole was present in the strip, a circuit was completed. Completion of the circuit caused the counter corresponding to that piece of information to register a hit and thus count one element. He said later:

My idea was to use a strip of paper and punch the record for each individual in a line across the strip. Then I ran this strip over a drum and made [electric] contacts through a hole to operate the counters.²