What achievement marks Hollerith’s contribution as the start of IT?
Answer
Successful large-scale processing using electromechanical means.
Hollerith's seminal contribution that ties his work directly to modern information technology involves the successful marriage of electrical sensing with mechanical data handling on a grand scale. He was the first to commercialize and implement a system capable of recording, processing, and tabulating vast quantities of complex, non-repeating statistical data using electromechanical methods, specifically culminating in the successful tabulation of the U.S. Census, moving the technology firmly from mere pattern control into the realm of data science.
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