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Unit record equipment

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Starting at the end of the nineteenth century, well before the advent of electronic computers, data processing was performed using electromechanical machines collectively referred to as unit record equipment, electric accounting machines (EAM) or tabulating machines.<ref>Origin of the term unit record: It was in 1888 that Mr. Davidson conceived the idea... The idea was that the card catalog, then in fairly general use by libraries, could be adapted with advantage to certain 'commercial indexes'. ... Directly connected with these is one of the most important principles of all - the 'unit record' principal in business. Hitherto, the records of a business house had been kept, each for one fixed purpose, and their usefulness had been restricted by the inflexible limitations of a bound book. The unit record principle, made possible by the card system, gave to these records a new accessibility and significance. ... Template:Cite book</ref><ref>By 1887 ...Doctor Herman Hollerith had worked out the basis for a mechanical system of recording, compiling and tabulating census facts... Each card was used to record the facts about an individual or a family - a unit situation. These cards were the forerunners of today's punched cards or unit records. Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Data processing equipment can be divided into two basic types - computers and unit record machines. Unit Record derives form the common use of punchcards to carry information on a one-item-per-card basis, which makes them unit records. Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Like the index card, the punched card is a unit record containing one kind of data, which can be combined with other kinds of data punched in other cards. Template:Cite book</ref> Unit record machines came to be as ubiquitous in industry and government in the first two-thirds of the twentieth century as computers became in the last third. They allowed large volume, sophisticated data-processing tasks to be accomplished before electronic computers were invented and while they were still in their infancy. This data processing was accomplished by processing punched cards through various unit record machines in a carefully choreographed progression.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> This progression, or flow, from machine to machine was often planned and documented with detailed flowcharts that used standardized symbols for documents and the various machine functions.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> All but the earliest machines had high-speed mechanical feeders to process cards at rates from around 100 to 2,000 per minute, sensing punched holes with mechanical, electrical, or, later, optical sensors. The operation of many machines was directed by the use of a removable plugboard, control panel, or connection box.<ref>Cemach, Harry P., 1951, The Elements of Punched Card Accounting, Pitman, p.27. Within certain limits the information punched in any column of a card can be reproduced in any desired position by the tabulator. This is achieved by means of a Connection Box. ... The connection box can be easily removed from the tabulator and replaced by another.</ref> Initially all machines were manual or electromechanical. The first use of an electronic component was in 1937 when a photocell was used in a Social Security bill-feed machine.<ref name="Pugh 1995">Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Rp Electronic components were used on other machines beginning in the late 1940s.

The term unit record equipment also refers to peripheral equipment attached to computers that reads or writes unit records, e.g., card readers, card punches, printers, MICR readers.

IBM was the largest supplier of unit record equipment and this article largely reflects IBM practice and terminology.

File:Holerith395782Figures1-6.tiff
Sheet 1 of Hollerith's U.S. Patent 395,782 showing his early concept for recording statistical information by means of holes punched in paper.

HistoryEdit

BeginningsEdit

In the 1880s Herman Hollerith was the first to record data on a medium that could then be read by a machine. Prior uses of machine readable media had been for lists of instructions (not data) to drive programmed machines such as Jacquard looms and mechanized musical instruments. "After some initial trials with paper tape, he settled on punched cards [...]".<ref>Columbia University Computing History - Herman Hollerith</ref> To process these punched cards, sometimes referred to as "Hollerith cards", he invented the keypunch, sorter, and tabulator unit record machines.<ref>U.S. Census Bureau: The Hollerith Machine</ref><ref>An early use of "Hollerith Card" can be found in the 1914 Actuarial Soc of America Trans. v.XV.51,52- Perforated Card System</ref> These inventions were the foundation of the data processing industry. The tabulator used electromechanical relays to increment mechanical counters. Hollerith's method was used in the 1890 census. The company he founded in 1896, the Tabulating Machine Company (TMC), was one of four companies that in 1911 were amalgamated in the forming of a fifth company, the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company, later renamed IBM.

Following the 1900 census a permanent Census bureau was formed. The bureau's contract disputes with Hollerith led to the formation of the Census Machine Shop where James Powers and others developed new machines for part of the 1910 census processing.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Powers left the Census Bureau in 1911, with rights to patents for the machines he developed, and formed the Powers Accounting Machine Company.<ref name=USCensusTab>U.S. Census Bureau: Tabulation and Processing</ref> In 1927 Powers' company was acquired by Remington Rand.<ref name=SperryRand>Template:Cite book</ref> In 1919 Fredrik Rosing Bull, after examining Hollerith's machines, began developing unit record machines for his employer. Bull's patents were sold in 1931, constituting the basis for Groupe Bull.

These companies, and others, manufactured and marketed a variety of general-purpose unit record machines for creating, sorting, and tabulating punched cards, even after the development of computers in the 1950s. Punched card technology had quickly developed into a powerful tool for business data-processing.

TimelineEdit

File:HollerithMachine.CHM.jpg
Replica of Hollerith tabulating machine with sorting box, circa 1890. The "sorting box" was an adjunct to, and controlled by, the tabulator. The "sorter", an independent machine, was a later development.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite book</ref>
  • 1884: Herman Hollerith files a patent application titled "Art of Compiling Statistics"; granted Template:US Patent on January 8, 1889.
  • 1886: First use of tabulating machine in Baltimore's Department of Health.<ref name=":0" />
  • 1887: Hollerith files a patent application for an integrating tabulator (granted in 1890).<ref name=":1">Template:Cite book</ref>
  • 1889: First recorded use of integrating tabulator in the Office of the Surgeon General of the Army.<ref name=":1" />
  • 1890-1895: U.S. Census, Superintendents Robert P. Porter 1889-1893 and Carroll D. Wright 1893–1897, tabulations are done using equipment supplied by Hollerith.
  • 1896: The Tabulating Machine Company founded by Hollerith, trade name for products is Hollerith
  • 1901: Hollerith Automatic Horizontal Sorter<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref>

  • 1904: Porter, having returned to England, forms The Tabulator Limited (UK) to market Hollerith's machines.<ref>Austrian, 1982, p.216</ref>
  • 1905: Hollerith reincorporates the Tabulating Machine Company as The Tabulating Machine Company
  • 1906: Hollerith Type 1 Tabulator, the first tabulator with an automatic card feed and control panel.<ref>Computing at Columbia: Timeline - Early</ref>
  • 1909: The Tabulator Limited renamed as British Tabulating Machine Company (BTM).
  • 1910: Tabulators built by the Census Machine Shop print results.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
  • 1910: Willy Heidinger, an acquaintance of Hollerith, licenses Hollerith's The Tabulating Machine Company patents, creating Dehomag in Germany.
  • 1911: Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company (CTR), a holding company, formed by the amalgamation of The Tabulating Machine Company and three other companies.
  • 1911: James Powers forms Powers Tabulating Machine Company, later renamed Powers Accounting Machine Company. Powers had been employed by the Census Bureau to work on tabulating machine development and was given the right to patent his inventions there. The machines he developed sensed card punches mechanically, as opposed to Hollerith's electric sensing.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
  • 1912: The first Powers horizontal sorting machine.<ref name=RR1941>Template:Cite book</ref>
  • 1914: Thomas J. Watson hired by CTR.
  • 1914: The Tabulating Machine Company produces 2 million punched cards per day.<ref name=Endicott195x>IBM Archives: Endicott chronology, 1951-1959</ref>
  • 1914: The first Powers printing tabulator.<ref name=jeanbellec>Information Technology Industry TimeLine</ref>
  • 1915 Powers Tabulating Machine Company establishes European operations through the Accounting and Tabulating Machine Company of Great Britain Limited.<ref name="Cortada p.57">Cortada p.57</ref><ref name="Pugh 1995"/>Template:Rp<ref name="Van Ness 1962 15">Template:Cite book</ref>
  • 1919: Fredrik Rosing Bull, after studying Hollerith's machines, constructs a prototype 'ordering, recording and adding machine' (tabulator) of his own design. About a dozen machines were produced during the following several years for his employer.<ref name=jeanbellec/>
  • 1920s: Early in this decade punched cards began use as bank checks.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Engelbourg p.173</ref>
  • 1920: BTM begins manufacturing its own machines, rather than simply marketing Hollerith equipment.
  • 1920: The Tabulating Machine Company's first printing tabulator, the Hollerith Type 3.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref>

File:Miss Cowell with Hollerith Machine, 1964.jpg
Hollerith machine in use at the London School of Economics in 1964

By the 1950s punched cards and unit record machines had become ubiquitous in academia, industry and government. The warning often printed on cards that were to be individually handled, "Do not fold, spindle or mutilate", coined by Charles A. Philips, became a motto for the post-World War II era (even though many people had no idea what spindle meant).<ref>Lee, J.A.L. (1995) Computer Pioneers, IEEE, p.557</ref>

With the development of computers punched cards found new uses as their principal input media. Punched cards were used not only for data, but for a new application - computer programs, see: Computer programming in the punched card era. Unit record machines therefore remained in computer installations in a supporting role for keypunching, reproducing card decks, and printing.

  • 1955: IBM produces 72.5 million punched cards per day.<ref name=Endicott195x/>
  • 1957: The IBM 608, a transistor version of the 1948 IBM 604. First commercial all-transistor calculator.<ref name="ibm-early-computers"/>Template:Rp<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
  • 1958: The "Series 50", basic accounting machines, was announced.<ref>IBM Archives - DPD chronology</ref> These were modified machines, with reduced speed and/or function, offered for rental at reduced rates. The name "Series 50" relates to a similar marketing effort, the "Model 50", seen in the IBM 1940 product booklet.<ref name=IBM1940>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref> An alternate report identifies the modified machines as "Type 5050" introduced in 1959 and notes that Remington-Rand introduced similar products.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

  • 1959: BTM is merged with rival Powers-Samas to form International Computers and Tabulators(ICT).
  • 1959: The IBM 1401, internally known in IBM for a time as "SPACE" for "Stored Program Accounting and Calculating Equipment" and developed in part as a response to the Bull Gamma 3, outperforms three IBM 407s and a 604, while having a much lower rental.<ref name="ibm-early-computers"/>Template:Rp That functionality combined with the availability of tape drives, accelerated the decline in unit record equipment usage.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
  • 1960: The IBM 609 Calculator, an improved 608 with core memory. This will be IBMs last punched card calculator.<ref>Columbia University: The IBM 609 Calculator</ref>

Many organizations were loath to alter systems that were working, so production unit record installations remained in operation long after computers offered faster and more cost effective solutions. Cost or availability of equipment was another factor; for example in 1965 an IBM 1620 computer did not have a printer as standard equipment, so it was normal in such installations to punch output onto cards and then print these cards on an IBM 407 accounting machine. Specialized uses of punched cards such as toll collection, microform aperture cards, and punched card voting kept unit record equipment in use into the twenty-first century.

EndingsEdit

  • 1976: The IBM 407 Accounting Machine was withdrawn from marketing.<ref>IBM 407 Accounting Machine</ref>
  • 1978: IBM's Rochester plant made its last shipment of the IBM 082, 084, 085, 087, 514, and 548 machines.<ref>IBM Rochester chronology, page3</ref> The System/3 was succeeded by the System/38.<ref name=System3/>
  • 1980: The last reconditioning of an IBM 519 Document Originating Punch.<ref>IBM Rochester chronology</ref>
  • 1984: The IBM 029 Card Punch, announced in 1964, was withdrawn from marketing.<ref>IBM 029 Card Punch</ref> IBM closed its last punch card manufacturing plant.<ref>IBM Punch-Card Plant Will Close, Joseph Perkins, The Washington Post,

July 2, 1984</ref>

|CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Template:Cite mailing list</ref>

  • 2015: Punched cards for time clocks and some other applications were still available; one supplier was the California Tab Card Company.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref> As of 2018, the web site was no longer in service.

Punched cardsEdit

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The basic unit of data storage was the punched card. The IBM 80-column card was introduced in 1928. The Remington Rand Card with 45 columns in each of two tiers, thus 90 columns, in 1930.<ref name=Gill>Template:Cite book</ref> Powers-Samas punched cards include one with 130 columns.<ref>(Cemach, 1951, pp 47-51)</ref> Columns on different punch cards vary from 5 to 12 punch positions.

The method used to store data on punched cards is vendor specific. In general each column represents a single digit, letter or special character. Sequential card columns allocated for a specific use, such as names, addresses, multi-digit numbers, etc., are known as a field. An employee number might occupy 5 columns; hourly pay rate, 3 columns; hours worked in a given week, 2 columns; department number 3 columns; project charge code 6 columns and so on.

KeypunchingEdit

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File:IBM card punch 029.JPG
IBM 029 Card Punch.

Original data were usually punched into cards by workers, often women, known as keypunch operators, under the control of a program card (called a drum card because it was installed on a rotating drum in the machine), which could automatically skip or duplicate predefined card columns, enforce numeric-only entry, and, later, right-justify a number entered.

Their work was often checked by a second operator using a verifier machine, also under the control of a drum card. The verifier operator re-keyed the source data and the machine compared what was keyed to what had been punched on the original card.

SortingEdit

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File:Punch card sorter.JPG
IBM 082 Sorter.

An activity in many unit record shops was sorting card decks into the order necessary for the next processing step. Sorters, like the IBM 80 series Card Sorters, sorted input cards into one of 13 pockets depending on the holes punched in a selected column and the sorter's settings. The 13th pocket was for blanks and rejects. Cards were sorted on one card column at a time; sorting on, for example, a five digit zip code required that the card deck be processed five times. Sorting an input card deck into ascending sequence on a multiple column field, such as an employee number, was done by a radix sort, bucket sort, or a combination of the two methods.

Sorters were also used to separate decks of interspersed master and detail cards, either by a significant hole punch or by the cards corner-cut.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

More advanced functionality was available in the IBM 101 Electronic Statistical Machine, which could

TabulatingEdit

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File:Ibm407 tabulator 1961 01.redstone.jpg
An IBM 407 Accounting Machine at US Army's Redstone Arsenal in 1961.

Reports and summary data were generated by accounting or tabulating machines. The original tabulators only counted the presence of a hole at a location on a card. Simple logic, like ands and ors could be done using relays.

Later tabulators, such as those in IBM's 300 series, directed by a control panel, could do both addition and subtraction of selected fields to one or more counters and print each card on its own line. At some signal, say a following card with a different customer number, totals could be printed for the just completed customer number. Tabulators became complex: the IBM 405 contained 55,000 parts (2,400 different) and 75 miles of wire; a Remington Rand machine circa 1941 contained 40,000 parts.<ref name=RR1941/><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

CalculatingEdit

In 1931, IBM introduced the model 600 multiplying punch. The ability to divide became commercially available after World War II. The earliest of these calculating punches were electromechanical. Later models employed vacuum tube logic. Electronic modules developed for these units were used in early computers, such as the IBM 650. The Bull Gamma 3 calculator could be attached to tabulating machines, unlike the stand-alone IBM calculators.<ref name="Bull Gamma 3"/> Template:Further

Card punchingEdit

File:Lochkartendoppler IBM 519.jpg
IBM 519 Document-Originating Machine

Card punching operations included:

  • Gang punching - producing a large number of identically punched cards—for example, for inventory tickets.
  • Reproducing - reproducing a card deck in its entirety or just selected fields. A payroll master card deck might be reproduced at the end of a pay period with the hours worked and net pay fields blank and ready for the next pay period's data. Programs in the form of card decks were reproduced for backup.
  • Summary punching - punching new cards with details and totals from an attached tabulating machine.
  • Mark sense reading - detecting electrographic lead pencil marks on ovals printed on the card and punching the corresponding data values into the card.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Singularly or in combination, these operations were provided in a variety of machines. The IBM 519 Document-Originating Machine could perform all of the above operations.

The IBM 549 Ticket Converter read data from Kimball tags, copying that data to punched cards. Template:Further

With the development of computers, punched cards were also produced by computer output devices.

Template:Anchor CollatingEdit

IBM collators had two input hoppers and four output pockets. These machines could merge or match card decks based on the control panel's wiring as illustrated here.

The Remington Rand Interfiling Reproducing Punch Type 310-1 was designed to merge two separate files into a single file. It could also punch additional information into those cards and select desired cards.<ref name=Gill/>

Collators performed operations comparable to a database join.

Template:Anchor InterpretingEdit

Template:See also

File:Turnaround card.agr.jpg
Punched card bill with selected columns interpreted at the top

An interpreter prints characters on a punched card equivalent to the values of all or selected columns. The columns to be printed can be selected and even reordered, based on the machine's control panel wiring. Later models could print on one of several rows on the card. Unlike keypunches, which print values directly above each column, interpreters generally use a font that was a little wider than a column and can only print up to 60 characters per row.<ref>IBM Card Interpreters</ref> Typical models include the IBM 550 Numeric Interpreter, the IBM 557 Alphabetic Interpreter, and the Remington Rand Type 312 Alphabetic Interpreter.<ref name=Gill/>

FilingEdit

Batches of punched cards were often stored in tub files, where individual cards could be pulled to meet the requirements of a particular application.

Transmission of punched card dataEdit

Template:See also

Electrical transmission of punched card data was invented in the early 1930s. The device was called an Electrical Remote Control of Office Machines and was assigned to IBM. Inventors were Joseph C. Bolt of Boston & Curt I. Johnson; Worcester, Mass. assors to the Tabulating Machine Co., Endicott, NY. The Distance Control Device received a US patent in Aug.9,1932: {{#if:1,870,230 |[{{#ifeq:|uspto|http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?patentnumber=%7Chttps://patents.google.com/patent/US}}{{#iferror:{{#expr:1870230 }}|1870230}} U.S. patent {{#ifeq:Template:Replace|Template:Digits|Template:Replace|1,870,230}}] |{{US patent|123456|link text}}}}. Letters from IBM talk about filling in Canada in 9/15/1931.

Processing punched tapeEdit

The IBM 046 Tape-to-Card Punch and the IBM 047 Tape-to-Card Printing Punch (which was almost identical, but with the addition of a printing mechanism) read data from punched paper tape and punched that data into cards. The IBM 063 Card-Controlled Tape Punch read punched cards, punching that data into paper tape.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Control panel wiring and Connection boxesEdit

File:IBM402plugboard.Shrigley.wireside.jpg
IBM 402 Accounting Machine control panel<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

{{#invoke:Labelled list hatnote|labelledList|Main article|Main articles|Main page|Main pages}} The operation of Hollerith/BTM/IBM/Bull tabulators and many other types of unit record equipment was directed by a control panel.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Operation of Powers-Samas/Remington Rand unit record equipment was directed by a connection box.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Control panels had a rectangular array of holes called hubs which were organized into groups. Wires with metal ferrules at each end were placed in the hubs to make connections. The output from some card column positions might connected to a tabulating machine's counter, for example. A shop would typically have separate control panels for each task a machine was used for.

Paper handling equipmentEdit

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File:Decollator and burster.jpg
A decollator and a burster

For many applications, the volume of fan-fold paper produced by tabulators required other machines, not considered to be unit record machines, to ease paper handling.

  • A decollator separated multi-part fan-fold paper into individual stacks of one-part fan-fold and removed the carbon paper.
  • A burster separated one-part fan-fold paper into individual sheets. For some uses it was desirable to remove the tractor-feed holes on either side of the fan-fold paper. In these cases the form's edge strips were perforated and the burster removed them as well.

See alsoEdit

Notes and referencesEdit

Template:Reflist

Further readingEdit

Note: Most IBM form numbers end with an edition number, a hyphen followed by one or two digits.

For Hollerith and Hollerith's early machines see: Herman Hollerith#Further reading

Histories
Punched card applications
  • Template:Cite book – With 42 contributors and articles ranging from Analysis of College Test Results to Uses of the Automatic Multiplying Punch this is book provides an extensive view of unit record equipment use over a wide range of applications. For details of this book see The Baehne Book..
  • Template:Cite book The appendix has IBM and Powers provided product detail sheets, with photo and text, for many machines.
  • Template:Cite book
  • Template:Cite book (source: {{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}) There is a 1954 edition, Ann F. Beach, et al., similar title and a 1956 edition, Joyce Alsop.

The machines
  • Template:Cite book Unabridged edition of "Data Processing Tech 3 &2", aka. "Rate Training manual NAVPERS 10264-B", 3rd revised ed. 1970
  • Template:Cite book Chapter 3 Punched Card Equipment describes American machines with some details of their logical organization and examples of control panel wiring.
  • Template:Cite book The four main systems in current use - Powers-Samas, Hollerith, Findex, and Paramount - are examined and the fundamentals principles of each are fully explained.
  • Template:Cite book An accessible book of recollections (sometimes with errors), with photographs and descriptions of many unit record machines. The ISBN is for an earlier (2006), printed, edition.
  • Template:Cite book This elementary introduction to punched card systems is unusual because unlike most others, it not only deals with the IBM systems but also illustrates the card formats and equipment offered by Remington Rand and Underwood Samas. Erwin Tomash Library
  • IBM (1936) Machine Methods of Accounting, 360 p. Includes a 12-page 1936 IBM-written history of IBM and descriptions of many machines.
  • Template:Cite book
  • Template:Cite book
  • Template:Cite book
  • Template:Cite book A simplified description of common IBM machines and their uses.
  • Template:Cite book With descriptions, photos and rental prices.
  • Template:Cite book The IBM Operators Guide, 22-8485 was an earlier edition of this book
  • Template:Cite book Has extensive descriptions of unit record machine construction.
  • Ken Shirriff's blog Inside card sorters: 1920s data processing with punched cards and relays.

External linksEdit

ja:タビュレーティングマシン

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