Gustav Tauschek

Gustav Tauschek (April 29, 1899, Vienna, Austria – February 14, 1945, Zürich, Switzerland) was an Austrian pioneer of Information technology and developed numerous improvements for punched card-based calculating machines from 1922 to 1945.

Career

System Tauschek

From 1926 till 1930 Tauschek developed a complete punched card-based accounting system, which was never mass-produced.[1]

The system is currently stored in the archives of the Technisches Museum Wien.

Magnetic drum memory

In 1932 Tauschek built a magnetic drum memory.[2]

IBM

Throughout the 1930s Tauschek worked as a consultant to IBM. For IBM he built a reading-writing calculator and he constructed a range of data storage devices with magnetized steel plates. For IBM Tauschek also build a accounting machine that was capable of storing the records of 10,000 bank accounts.[3]

Later life and legacy

Gustav Tauschek died of an embolism on February 14, 1945 in a hospital in Zürich, Switzerland.

References

1. Herbert Bruderer (2021). Milestones in Analog and Digital Computing. Springer International Publishing. p. 1196. ISBN 9783030409746.
2. Laszlo Solymar; Donald Walsh; Richard R. A. Syms (2014). Electrical Properties of Materials. OUP Oxford. p. 446. ISBN 9780191007354.
3. James W. Cortada (2015). Before the Computer: IBM, NCR, Burroughs, and Remington Rand and the Industry They Created, 1865-1956. Princeton University Press. p. 108. ISBN 9781400872763.

External links

• Gustav Tauschek in the German National Library catalogue
• ÖGIG Startseite at www.oegig.at Austrian Society for History of Informatics
• Technisches Museum Wien at www.tmw.at Vienna Technical Museum