What was Cyrus Davenport’s 1840s attempt using punched cards intended to automate?
Answer
Indexing books.
While Hollerith focused on large-scale tabulation for government statistics, earlier inventors explored mechanical recording for different organizational tasks. Cyrus Davenport in the 1840s designed a specific machine that utilized punched cards with the goal of automating the process of indexing books. Although this represented an early application of mechanical information retrieval through encoded holes, it did not achieve the widespread adoption or the sophisticated electromechanical reading capabilities that Hollerith later applied to the census.
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