Hollerith also invented a sorting machine, to facilitate the tabulation of subsets of the population.

ECONOMIST: Millennium issue

Richmond was infected after a mail-sorting machine was cleaned with a high pressure hose.

CNN: An anthrax survivor looks back

Mr Griffiths was wearing gloves when he tried to clear the blockage in the potato sorting machine while it was running on 5 December, 2011.

BBC: Sirhowy Valley Foods: Crisp firm fined as man loses thumb

When a card was inserted into the tabulating machine, the counters would be updated accordingly, and the appropriate drawer in the sorting machine would open.

ECONOMIST: Millennium issue

It led eventually to Fiat, where his first job was sorting out the sale of a machine-tool subsidiary in the early 1960s.

ECONOMIST: The law and the profits