Central Statistical Office

Its tasks are defined by the Statistical Act: national data collection, data processing, information. From 1952 and 1969, the Office was also given the task of coordinating computer applications.

On May 25, 1867, the statistical department (III. department, 5. department) of the Ministry of Agriculture, Industry and Trade was established as the predecessor of the Central Statistical Office.

1869. The first Hungarian census law is adopted, which makes the conduct of the census the responsibility of the Central Statistical Office's predecessor institution , the Central Statistical Office's Computer Laboratory.

On April 18, 1871, the rules of procedure of the National Royal Hungarian Statistical Office were approved.

In 1887, this institution became the Royal Hungarian Central Statistical Office. It was headed by a director, and the head of the institution has had the title of president since 1929. Its tasks are defined by the Statistical Act: national data collection, data processing, and information.    

1993. The national professional supervision of the President of the Central Statistical Office over computer applications is terminated .

1930, The first Hungarian census to use machines. The Central Statistical Office ordered a version of the Hollerith punched card machine, improved by James Powers. The information on the individual count sheets was transferred to the machine cards by twenty-four key punch machines, while two single-counter and three four-counter sorting machines performed the counting and sorting tasks. The new method made it possible to classify much more finely than before, to form any number of combinations, and to publish the results more quickly.

1949. The Central Statistical Office consisted of 6 main departments, with departments within them. In the following years, their number changed continuously.

The ideal date for the ninth census was December 31, 1948. At that time, processing the census and the data from the building and housing census in a “traditional” way, with many, many employees working manually for several years, was already unthinkable. In view of this, the Central Statistical Office was authorized by the Government to purchase a large-capacity IBM punch card machine park and to operate it, it established the Census Machine Data Processing Department (GAO) equipped with Hollerith machines, headed by Lajos Pesti until 1952. The Central Statistical Office building at 1–3 Buday László Street was built for the purpose of mechanization. The number of employees of the office increased to 733 people.

The Machine Data Processing Department successfully fulfilled its task, namely to "organize" the data obtained during the census - in close cooperation with the Office's Census Department - and to process it according to the requirements by the prescribed deadline.

After the census work was completed, the Department was given another significant state task. The National Planning Office saw fit to have the processing of the data requested from economic organizations for the compilation of the first five-year plan /1950-1954/ carried out by the Central Statistical Office department, which had the appropriate machine capacity and sufficient professional experience.

After the complete completion of the 1949 census work, the "automation" of regular data collection began in the professional, sectoral /industrial, construction, agricultural, population movement, health, etc./ departments of the Central Statistical Office.

The Office established a small group within the Machine Data Processing Department, which not only organized the distribution of the existing machine stock in a more appropriate manner to the needs, but also made it possible for numerous institutions and companies to rent IBM and Bull punched card machines from the central foreign exchange budget received from the Ministry of Finance. In addition to managing the machines, it organized courses for users and provided advice.

1951. The SGAGI (Statistical Machine Data Processing Economic Office) was established.

Since the processing of large amounts of data required significant technical assistance, the Central Statistical Office became the largest user of punched card machines in Hungary, and therefore in 1952 it was given the task of coordinating the work of the Hungarian punched card machine park, and then in 1969 of coordinating the development of Hungarian computer applications. For this purpose, it established a wide institutional system: OÜF, SGAV (later SZÜV), Infelor, SZÁMOK, OSZV (the latter three together later Számalk), SKV, ÁSZSZ, SOFTINVEST (in part), and within the Central Statistical Office it established departments dealing with computer technology (CSO OSZI, CSO SZAI, CSO Szám: Labor, CSO SZTI) and established its own computer center (CSO SZK).