On Sun, 22 Feb 2004 blstuart(a)bellsouth.net wrote:
  > > >
39th?  Shouldn't it be older than that? 
 Methinks ol' Herman must have been
born on February 29, 1848. 
 
Feb 29, 1860.
Therefore, 35th birthday   (1900 was NOT a leap year)
Some 1890 ASCII keyboards:
http://www.computer.org/history/development/graphics/1890hol1.jpg
The reason why the 1890 census was expected to take too long
to process without Hollerith was:
A)  There were too many dinosaurs to count
B)  Volts flowed slower in those days
C)  They were using MICROS~1 software
D)  There was a shortage of 1s to use in making binary
E)  The need to invent hanging chad