Hollerith horizontal electrical sorting machine, no.7407, 45 column, invented by Herman Hollerith, and made by British Tabulating Machine Company Limited, Letchworth, Hertfordshire, England, 1920-1930

Hollerith horizontal electrical sorting machine, no. 7407, 45 column by German inventor Dr. Herman Hollerith (1860-1929). He devised a mechanical system for recording data from the punched card device introduced by Joseph Jacquard (1752-1834) and eventually designed machines able to combine punching, sorting and tabulating functions in one, such as those used in the 1890 US Census. In 1896 he formed a company which later evolved into International Business Machines, known today as IBM. The machine sorts puched cards into groups uder the desired headings. The cards are places in batches vertically in the stacker on the right-hand side, and by turning a small handle, a pointed is set against the column desired for sorting. Once the start buttong is pressed, the cards would be sorted at a rate of 24,000 per hour until one of the 'pockets' for storing punched cards becomes full.