2001年下半年自考全国卷 高级英语试题（附答案）

7) Hollerith also invented a sorting machine, to facilitate the tabulation of subsets of the population. When a card was inserted into the tabulating machines, the counters would be updated accordingly, and the appropriate drawer in the sorting machine would open.

8) When it came to choosing a tabulating machine for the 1890 census, Hollerith's design was one of three contenders. The other two machines used colour-coded slips of paper and chips of wood to represent information. In a competition between them it took 72 hours to record all the data on to Hollerith's punched cards, which was not vastly faster than the 144 hours and 100 hours taken by the other two machines.

9) The real advantage of Hollerith's system became clear, however, when it came to manipulating the stored data and compiling the results. Hollerith's machines took less than six hours; the other machines took 55 and 44 hours respectively. His design was chosen, and his machines compiled the results of the 1890 census in a mere six weeks, at a saving to the Census Bureau of $5 million in staff costs梩en times more than expected.

10) This success enabled Hollerith to expand his Tabulating Machine Company into overseas markets. In 1911, the company merged with two others, and in 1924 the new firm changed its name to International Business Machine梟ow better known as IBM. There is, in other words, a direct line from Hollerith's tabulating machines to mainframe computers and, in 1981, to the first IBM PC.

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