Editing Keypunch (section)

==Transition to direct data entry==
In the 1950s, [[Remington Rand]] introduced the [[UNITYPER]],<ref>{{cite book 
|title=Grace Hopper and the Invention of the Information Age
|url=https://books.google.com/books?isbn=1483550494  |isbn=978-1483550497
|author=Kurt W. Beyer  |date=2015
|quote=... 1950, Remington Rand was ... UNITYPER, the ...}}</ref><ref>{{cite web 
|title=Univac UNITYPER |website=IThistory.org (IT History Society)
|date=15 December 2015
|quote=UNITYPER was an input device for the UNIVAC computer... Remington Rand in the 1950s.
|url=https://www.ithistory.org/db/hardware/sperry-rand/univac-unityper}}</ref> which enabled [[data entry clerk|data entry]] directly to [[magnetic tape]] for [[UNIVAC]] systems. [[Mohawk Data Sciences]] subsequently produced an improved magnetic tape encoder in 1965, which was somewhat successfully marketed as a keypunch replacement. In the mid-1970s, the rise of microprocessors and inexpensive computer terminals led to the development of additional key-to-tape and key-to-disk systems from smaller companies such as [[Inforex 1300 Systems|Inforex]] and [[Pertec Computer|Pertec]].

Punched cards were still commonly used for data entry and programming until the mid-1980s. However, eliminating the step of transferring punched cards to tape or disk (with the added benefit of saving the cost of the cards themselves) allowed for improved checking and correction during the data entry process. The development of [[video display terminal]]s, interactive [[Time-sharing|timeshared system]]s and, later, [[personal computer]]s allowed workers who originated the data to enter it directly instead of writing it on forms to be entered by [[data entry clerk]]s.