Punched Card in Computing and the Computer Technology

Reading Responses: Computers and Computer Technology
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Reading Responses: Computer and Computer Technology
1 What role did the punched card play in the history of computing? Please refer to at least one of the week 3 readings in your response.
Computing and data processing has evolved for centuries now, and Charles Babbage, an English Mathematician (1791), has been credited with being the first human being to conceive the idea of digital computing. Analytic engine, the most famous invention of the 19th century by the pioneer of computing technologies had components whose concepts remain vital to this day. The different components from Babbage’s idea of the Analytic Engine are replicated in modern-day computers: the mill to represent the Central Processing Unit, the memory store, controls, and user interface to denote input and output respectively (Dasgupta, n.d.). Punched cards, invented by Harmen Hollerith, used initially with the Jacquard loom and later by Babbage’s Analytic engine (Fuegi & Francis, 2003), played a role in the realization of the various capabilities that a computer can perform today including mathematical computation in data processing and data storage.
Data processing, defined by Hollerith himself to entail some basic mathematical computation such as sorting, counting, and tallying (Dasgupta, n.d. p.31), became the driving force for the invention of Punched Cards that was later useful in the first electronically computed statistical data for United States census. Population information obtained through the census is quite enormous, and the Punched Cards technology played a significant role in easing the tasks by delegating some of the duties to the machine. Printing or rather outputting of the results of data processing is a critical role dedicated to a computer these days, and the concept can be drawn from the idea of a keyboard punch used to generate punched cards. Such automation achieved using punched cards marked the beginning of automation in data processing that has been delegated to computers in the modern era.
Punched cards also initiated the concept of storing information electronically. The punched cards, as described by Dasgupta (n.d.), was subdivided into several sections to represent specific information. The idea of subdividing the punched card can be associated with the tracks and sectors used in modern-day storage technologies. Similarly, the tabulating machine, or rather the press, as it was termed by Hollerith (Dasgupta, n.d. p.31), was used to read the data stored on the punched cards, with a sensor used to differentiate the punched holes and the untouched parts of the card to make meaningful information. This concept is credited for the idea of using pits and lands on optical discs to store electronic data.
Punched cards, although not entirely automated marked the beginning of digital data processing in the computing arena by making possible the automation of some computations. Punched cards also acted as an inspiration in the development of some of the storage devices used in the contemporary era.
2 What does John Searle (Week 8) mean when he uses the word ‘understanding’? Why, in his view, are machines inca...