James L. Powers

James Powers, c. 1915

James Legrand Powers (1871, Odessa - November, 8, 1926, New York) - American inventor and entrepreneur, the founder of Powers Accounting Machine Company.

Biography

James Legrand Powers was born in Odessa, Russian Empire (now Ukraine) in 1871. He graduated from Odessa Technical School and worked in Odessa University mechanical shop. In 1889 he emigrated to the United States and was employed by various engineering concerns including Western Electric.

In 1907 Powers was hired by US Census Bureau as a mechanical expert to modify unit record equipment invented two decades earlier by Herman Hollerith, so that improved machines will not infringe Hollerith's patents. Powers had already done some experimental work on office machines and received several patents. Powers managed to circumvent Hollerith's patents and introduced new punched card equipment which was used in 1909 Cuban Census and 1910 US Census.

Powers Accounting Machine Company

Powers founded his company in 1911 as Powers Tabulating Machine Company but later changed its name for Powers Accounting Machine Company. Founded in Newark, New Jersey, the company was moved to Brooklyn, New York in 1914. By 1914 Powers Accounting Machine Company is said to have its subsidiaries in Germany, Bulgaria, and Italy; however, the information about them is scarce. German and Bulgarian subsidiaries are said to be closed during the First World War. In 1915 Prudential Building Society founded Accounting and Tabulating Company of Great Britain which sold Powers machines. French subsidiary called SAMAS (a.k.a. S.A.M.A.S. for Societe Anonyme des Machines a Statistiques; Anonimous Society of Statistical Machinery) was established in 1922, alongside with Belgian agency in 1919. German agency was refounded in 1923.

In 1927 the Remington Typewriter Company and the Rand Kardex Corporation merged, forming Remington Rand Inc. which acquired the Powers Accounting Machine Company within a year. After several more merges the company is known nowadays as Unisys Corporation.

Death date

James Powers died on 8 November, 1926, and the obituary appeared in New York Times two days later. Since Powers was not famous, his death went almost unnoticed, which later caused discrepancies. According to Encyclopedia of Computer Science article, Powers died around 1935. However, Deutsches Museum's stand states 1915 as the date of Powers's death.

Inventions

Mechanical hole-sensing unit Herman Hollerith's tabulating equipment used electric reading unit in which the perforations in cards made and broke the electric current, thus allowing current to add numbers on the counters. Since Hollerith was the originator of the technology, his patents protected electric card reading technique, which meant that the Census Bureau couldn't use it without infringing Hollerith's patents.

Powers, a renowned inventor, devised a mechanical sensing unit which acted as a typewriter. For reading, a set of rods fixed on springs fell on a card. Rods went through the holes of the card and pushed the buttons placed under. These buttons acted as an input mechanism connected mechanically to a set of counters or sorting devices. Thus Powers managed to invent his own system which bear no resemblance with Hollerith's one. The system included the whole set of machines, necessary for tabulating, namely, electric card punch, card verifier, sorting machine and printing tabulator.

Printing tabulator Hollerit tabulators were non-printing, displaying numbers on a row of mechanical counters. This caused pauses during tabulating, as it was necessary to write totals by hand. Powers introduced first printing tabulator in 1907.

Electric card punch Powers introduced the first electric card punch (e.g. using electric motor to punch the holes) in 1910 and 300 of these machines were used during 1910 US Census. However, this model proved to be error-prone and was dismissed during the Census. Several years after Powers Accounting Machine Company advertised at least three different types of electric card punches:

1. Full-keyboard electric card punch

2. 10-key electric card punch

3. Slide electric card punch

IBM introduced its own motorised card punch in 1929.

Punch card verifier

In 1915 Powers introduced the first card verifier, which was used to check the correctness of punching. IBM introduced its own card verifier only in 1917.

Sources

• Stan Augarten. Bit by Bit. An Illustrated History of Computers. (Ticknor & Fields, 1984).

• Martin Campbell-Kelly. Powers, James in Encyclopedia of Computer Science (4th edition) edited by Edwin D. Reilly, Anthony Ralston, David Hemmendinger. (John Wiley and Sons Ltd, 2003)

• Martin Campbell-Kelly. Chapter Four: Punched-Card Machinery in Computing Before Computers edited by William Aspray. (Iowa State University Press, 1990)

Born in 1871 Died in 1926 Powers Accounting Machine Company Powers-Samas Odessa Russian Empire Ukraine Odessa University Western Electric US Census Bureau 1910 US Census Unit record equipment Hollerith, Herman Newark, New Jersey Brooklyn, New York Prudential plc Remington Rand Unisys