<P> Of the companies amalgamated to form CTR , the most technologically significant was The Tabulating Machine Company , founded by Herman Hollerith , and specialized in the development of punched card data processing equipment . Hollerith 's series of patents on tabulating machine technology , first applied for in 1884 , drew on his work at the U.S. Census Bureau from 1879 -- 82 . Hollerith was initially trying to reduce the time and complexity needed to tabulate the 1890 Census . His development of punched cards in 1886 set the industry standard for the next 80 years of tabulating and computing data input . </P>
who was the first person to successfully introduce a device exclusively designed for data processing
Herman Hollerith