Unit record equipment

Before the advent of electronic computers, data processing was performed using electromechanical devices called unit record^[1] equipment, electric accounting machines (EAM) or tabulating machines. Unit record machines were as ubiquitous in industry and government in the first half of the twentieth century as computers became in the second half. They allowed large volume, sophisticated, data-processing tasks to be accomplished long before modern (electronic) computers were invented. This data processing was accomplished by processing decks of punched cards through various unit record machines in a carefully choreographed progression. This progression, or flow, from machine to machine was often planned and documented with drawings that used standardized symbols for the various machine functions,^[2] drawings that today would be called flowcharts.^[3] The machines all had high-speed mechanical feeders to process from around one hundred cards per minute, to 2,000 cards per minute, sensing punched holes with either electrical or optical sensors. The operation of many machines was directed by the use of a removable control panel. Initially all machines were constructed using electromechanical counters and relays. Electronic components were introduced on some machines beginning in the late 1940s.

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

Contents 1 History 1.1 Beginnings 1.2 Timeline 1.3 Endings 2 Punched cards 3 Keypunching 4 Sorting 5 Tabulating 6 Paper handling equipment 7 Calculating 8 Card punching 9 Collating 10 Interpreting 11 Transmission of punched card data 12 Processing punched tape 13 Control panel wiring 14 See also 15 Notes and references 16 Further reading 17 External links

History

Beginnings

In the 1880s Herman Hollerith invented the recording of data on a medium that could then be read by a machine. Prior uses of machine readable media had been for control (Automatons, Piano rolls, looms, ...), not data. "After some initial trials with paper tape, he settled on punched cards..."^[4] To process these punched cards, first known as "Hollerith cards" he invented the tabulator, and the keypunch machines.^[5] These three inventions were the foundation of the modern information processing industry. His machines, called unit record machines, used mechanical relays (and solenoids) to increment mechanical counters. Hollerith's method was used in the 1890 census and the completed results were ... finished months ahead of schedule and far under budget.^[6] The company he founded, the Tabulating Machine Company (1896), was one of four companies that merged to form Computing Tabulating Recording Corporation (CTR), later renamed IBM. IBM manufactured and marketed a variety of unit record machines for creating, sorting, and tabulating punched cards, even after expanding into computers in the late 1950s.

Following the 1900 census a permanent Census bureau was formed. The new bureau's contract disputes with Hollerith led to James Powers, an employee of the Census Bureau, developing new machines for part of the 1910 census processing.^[7] Powers left the Census Bureau in 1911, with rights to patents for the machines he developed, and formed the Powers Accounting Machine Company.^[6] In 1927 Power's company merged with the Remington Typewriter Company and Rand Kardex Company to form Remington Rand

Punched card technology soon developed into a powerful tool for business data-processing with a variety of general-purpose unit record machines from these two competing companies (a duopoly).

Timeline

• 1884: Herman Hollerith files a patent application titled "Art of Compiling Statistics"; granted U.S. Patent 395,782 on January 8, 1889.

• 1890: U.S. Census is tabulated using equipment built by Hollerith

• 1896: Tabulating Machine Company founded by Hollerith

• 1901: Hollerith Automatic Horizontal Sorter^[8]

• 1906: Hollerith Type I Tabulator, the first tabulator with an automatic card feed and control panel.^[9]

• 1914: CTR produces 2 million punched cards per day.^[10]

• 1920: The first CTR printing tabulator.^[11]

• 1925: The first IBM horizontal card sorter, the IBM Type 80.^[12]

• 1928: The first IBM tabulator that could subtract, the IBM Type IV tabulator.^[13] IBM begins its collaboration with Benjamin Wood, Wallace John Eckert and the Statistical Bureau at Columbia University.^[14][15] Leslie Comrie described the use of punched card equipment for interpolating tables of data. The IBM 80-column card.

• 1930: The Remington Rand 90 column card.... more storage capacity ... alphabetic capability...^[16]

• 1931: The first IBM punched card machine that could multiply, the IBM 600 Multiplying Punch.^[17] IBMs first alphabetical accounting machine - although not a complete alphabet, the Alphabetic Tabulator Model B was quickly followed by the full alphabet ATC.^[18]

• 1931: The term Super Computing Machine is used by the New York World newspaper to describe the Columbia Difference Tabulator, a one-of-a-kind special purpose tabulator-based machine made for the Columbia Statistical Bureau, a machine so massive it was nicknamed Packard.^[19][20] The Packard attracted users from across the country: “the Carnegie Foundation, Yale, Pittsburgh, Chicago, Ohio State, Harvard, California and Princeton.”^[21]

• 1937: The first collator, the IBM 077 Collator ^[22] By 1937... IBM had 32 presses at work in Endicott, N.Y., printing, cutting and stacking five to 10 million punched cards every day.^[23]

• 1940: IBM booklet has photographs and descriptions of their products.^[24]

• 1943: IBM had about 10,000 tabulators on rental ... 601 multipliers numbered about 2000 ... keypunch 24,500.^[25]

• 1946: The first IBM punched card machine that could divide, the IBM 602, was introduced. Unreliable, it was upgraded to the 602-A (a "602 that worked"... by 1948.^[26] The IBM 603 Electronic Multiplier was introduced, ...the first electronic calculator ever placed into production..^[27]

• 1948: The IBM 604 Electronic Punch. ... no other calculator of comparable size or cost could match its capability.^[28]

• 1949: The IBM 024 Card Punch, 026 Printing Card Punch, 082 Sorter, 403 Accounting machine, 407 Accounting machine, and Card Programmed Calculator (CPC) introduced.^[29]

• 1952: Remington Rand 409 Calculator (aka. UNIVAC 60, UNIVC 120) introduced.

By the 1950s the IBM card and IBM unit record machines had become ubiquitous in industry and government. The warning often printed on cards that were to be individually handled, Do not fold, spindle or mutilate, became a motto for the post-World War II era (even though many people had no idea what spindle meant).

With the development of computers in the 1950s, 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; keypunching, reproducing card decks, and printing.

• 1955: IBM produces 72.5 million punched cards per day.^[10]

• 1958: The "Series 50", basic accounting machines, was announced.^[30] 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.^[24]

• 1960: The IBM 1401, internally known in IBM for a time as SPACE for Stored Program Accounting and Calculating Equipment, outperforms three IBM 407s and a 604, while having a much lower rental^[31] That functionality combined with the availability of tape drives, accelerated the decline in unit record equipment usage.

• 1960: The IBM 609 Calculator, an improved 608 with core memory. This will be IBMs last punched card calculator.^[32]

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. Specialized uses of punched cards, including toll collection, microform aperture cards, and punched card voting, kept unit record equipment in use into the twenty-first century. Another reason was cost or availability of equipment: in 1965 an IBM 1620 computer did not have a printer as standard equipment, so it was normal in such installations to punch printed output onto cards, using two cards per line if required and print these cards on an IBM 407 accounting machine and then throw the cards away.

• 1969: The IBM System/3, renting for less than $1,000 a month, the ancestor of IBM's current midrange computer product line, aka. minicomputers, was aimed at new customers and organizations that still used IBM 1400 series computers or unit record equipment. It featured a new, smaller, punched card with a 96 column format. Instead of the rectangular punches in the classic IBM card, the new cards had tiny (1 mm), circular holes much like paper tape. By July 1974 more than 25,000 System/3s had been installed.^[33]

• 1971: The IBM 129 Card Data Recorder (keypunch and auxiliary on-line card reader/punch) is the last, or among the last, 80-column card unit record product announcements (other than card readers and card punches attached to computers).

• 1975 Cardamation founded, a U.S. company still supplying punched card equipment and supplies as of 2011^[update].

Endings

• 1976: The IBM 407 Accounting Machine was withdrawn from marketing.^[34]

• 1978: IBM's Rochester plant made its last shipment of the IBM 082, 084, 085, 087, 514, and 548 machines.^[35] The System/3 was succeeded by the System/38.^[33]

• 1980: The last reconditioning of an IBM 519 Document Originating Punch.^[36]

• 1984: The IBM 029 Card Punch, announced in 1964, was withdrawn from marketing.^[37]

• 2010: A group from the Computer History Museum reported that an IBM 402 Accounting Machine and related punched card equipment was still in operation at a filter manufacturing company in Conroe, Texas.^[38]

Punched cards

The basic unit of data storage was the punched card. For the IBM 80-column card, introduced in 1928, each column represented a single digit, letter or special character. Data values consisted of a field of adjacent columns. An employee number might occupy 5 columns; hourly pay rate, 3 columns; hours actually worked in a given week, 2 columns; department number 3 columns; project charge code 6 columns and so on.

IBM Stub cards or Short cards required unit record equipment with interchangeable feeds. For 51-column stub cards such feeds were available for the IBM 077, 080, 082, 402, 403, 419, 514, 519, and 523. Other stub cards could be read only by the IBM 514 and 519.^[39]

Keypunching

Original data was usually punched into cards by workers, often women, known as keypunch operators. Their work was often checked by a second operator using a verifier machine. Cards were also produced automatically by various unit record machines and later by computer output devices.

Sorting

An activity in many unit record shops was sorting decks of punched cards 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 which hole was punched in a selected column. The 13th pocket was for blanks and rejects. Sorting an input 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.

Tabulating

Reports and summary data were generated by accounting or tabulating machines, such as the IBM 407. A deck was fed through the tabulating machine where, as directed by the control panel, each card could be printed on its own line and/or selected fields from each card could be added to the value of one of several counters. At some signal, say a card with a special punch indicating it was a master card, one or more summary lines could be produced containing the summed values.

Paper handling equipment

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.

Calculating

Card punching

Card punching machines included:

• Gang punch - these would produce a large number of identically punched cards—for example, for inventory tickets.
• Reproducing punch - these could reproduce a deck of cards in its entirety or they might just reproduce selected fields. A payroll master 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. Computer programmers who created their programs in the form of punched card decks used these to make backups.
• Summary punch - these were attached to tabulating machines and could punch new cards with details and totals from the tabulating machine.
• Mark sense reader - these would detect pencil marks on ovals printed on the card and punch the corresponding data values into the card.^[40]

Later "document origination machines" such as the IBM 519 could perform all of the above operations.

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

Collating

A collator had two input hoppers and four output pockets. These machines could merge or match card decks based on the control panel's wiring. Collators performed operations comparable to a database join.

Interpreting

An interpreter would print characters equivalent to the values of columns on the card. The columns to be printed could 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 printed values directly above each column, interpreters generally used a font that was a little wider than a column and could only print up to 60 characters per row.^[41] Typical later models include the IBM 550 Numeric Interpreter and the IBM 557 Alphabetic Interpreter.

Transmission of punched card data

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: pat# 1,870,230. Letters from IBM talk about filling in Canada in 9/15/1931.

Processing punched tape

The IBM 046 Tape-to-Card Punch and IBM 047 Tape-to-Card Printing Punch (almost identical, with the exception of the printing mechanism) read data from punched paper tape and punched that data into punched cards. The IBM 063 Card-Controlled Tape Punch read punched cards, punching that data into paper tape.^[42]

See Punched tape.

Control panel wiring

The operation of most unit record equipment (except for sorters) was directed by a control panel.^[44] The panels had a rectangular array of hubs 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.

Note: Control panel wiring is sometimes referred to as Programming. That use, in the context of data processing, to suggest a link with computer programming, is an anachronism; the projection of a modern idea on the past.

See also

• British Tabulating Machine Company
• Fredrik Rosing Bull
• Gustav Tauschek
• IBM Electromatic Table Printing Machine
• IBM 632 Accounting Machine
• IBM 6400 Series
• Leslie Comrie
• List of IBM products
• Powers Accounting Machine Company
• Powers-Samas
• Remington Rand
  • List of UNIVAC products
• Wallace John Eckert

Notes and references

Further reading

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

Hollerith, Hollerith's early machines

• Austrian, Geoffrey D. (1982). Herman Hollerith: The Forgotten Giant of Information Processing. Columbia University Press. pp. 418. ISBN 0-231-05146-8. 
• Hollerith, Herman (April 1889). "An Electric Tabulating System". The Quarterly, Columbia University School of Mines X (16): 238–255. http://www.columbia.edu/cu/computinghistory/hh/index.html.  From the Columbia Univ. History site: This article is the basis for his 1890 Columbia Ph.D. Extracts reprinted in (Randell, 1982).
• Hollerith, Herman (1890). In connection with the electric tabulation system which has been adopted by U.S. government for the work of the census bureau. Ph.D. dissertation. Columbia University School of Mines. 
• Hollerith, Herman (December 1894). "The Electrical Tabulating Machine". Journal of the Royal Statistical Association (Blackwell Publishing) 57 (4): 678–682. doi:10.2307/2979610. JSTOR 2979610.  From (Randell, 1982) ... brief... fascinating article... describes the way in which tabulators and sorters were used on ... 100 million cards ... 1890 census.
• Truedsell, Leon E. (1965). The Development of Punch Card Tabulation in the Bureau of the Census 1890-1940. US GPO.  Includes extensive, detailed, description of Hollerith's first machines and their use for the 1890 census.

Histories

• Aspray (ed.), William (1990). Computing before Computers. Iowa State University Press. pp. 266. ISBN 0-8138-0047-1. 
• Brennan, Jean Ford (1971). The IBM Watson Laboratory at Columbia University: A History. IBM. pp. 68. 
• Cortada, James W. (1983). An Annotated Bibliography on the History of Data Processing. Greenwood. pp. 215. ISBN 0-313-24001-9. 
• Cortada, James W. (1993). Before the Computer: IBM, NCR, Burroughs, & Remington Rand & the Industry they created, 1865 - 1956. Princeton. pp. 344. ISBN 0-691-04807-X. 
• Krawitz, Miss Eleanor (November 1949). "Watson Scientific Computing Laboratory: A Center for Scientific Research Using Calculating Machines". Columbia Engineering Quarterly. http://www.columbia.edu/cu/computinghistory/krawitz/index.html. 
• Lars, Heide (2009). Punched-Card Systems and the Early Information Explosion, 1880--1945. John Hopkins U Press. pp. 369. ISBN 0-8018-9143-4. 
• Randell, Brian (1982). The Origins of Digital Computers: Selected Papers (3 ed.). Springer-Verlag. pp. 580. ISBN 0-387-11319-3.  includes Hollerith (1889).  reprint

Punched card applications

• Baehne (editor), G.W. (1935). Practical Applications of the Punched Card Method in Colleges and Universities. Columbia University. pp. 442.  – 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..
• Ferris, Lorna; et al. (1948). Bibliography on the Uses of Punched Cards. MIT. 
• Grosch, Herb (1945). Bibliography on the Use of IBM Machines in Scientific Research, Statistics, and Education. IBM.  (source: Frank da Cruz (Feb 6, 2010). "Herb Grosch". Columbia University. http://www.columbia.edu/cu/computinghistory/grosch.html. Retrieved 14 June 2011. ) There is a 1954 edition, Ann F. Beach, et al., similar title and a 1956 edition, Joyce Alsop.
• IBM (1944). IBM Accounting Course. 25-4933-3-3M-ME-1-49. http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/punchedCard/Training/IBM_Accounting_Course_1949.pdf.  Describes several punched card applications.
• Eckert, W.J. (1940). Punched Card Methods in Scientific Computation. Columbia University. pp. 136. ISBN 0262050307.  Note: ISBN is for a reprint ed.

The machines

• Bureau of Naval Personnel (1971). Basic Data Processing. Dover. pp. 315. ISBN 0-486-20229-1. http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/punchedCard/Training/Basic_Data_Processing_1970.pdf.  Unabridged edition of "Data Processig Tech 3 &2", aka. "Rate Training manual NAVPERS 10264-B", 3rd revised ed. 1970
• Fierheller, George A. (2006). Do not fold, spindle or mutilate: the 'hole' story of punched cards. Stewart Pub.. ISBN 1-894183-86-X. http://gfierheller.ca/books/pdf/do_not_fold.pdf. Retrieved March 30, 2011.  An accessible book of recollections (sometimes with errors), with photographs and descriptions of many unit record machines.
• IBM. An Introduction to IBM Punched Card Data Processing. F20-0074. http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/punchedCard/Training/F20-0074_An_Introduction_to_IBM_Punched_Card_Data_Processing.pdf. 
• IBM (1957). Machine Functions. 224-8208-3. http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/punchedCard/Training/224-8208-3_Machine_Functions_Mar61.pdf.  A simplified description of common IBM machines and their uses.
• IBM (1959). IBM Operators Guide: Reference Manual. A24-1010-0. http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/punchedCard/Training/A24-1010-0_IBM_Operators_Reference.pdf.  The IBM Operators Guide, 22-8485 was an earlier edition of this book
• IBM (1957). IBM Equipment Summary. http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/punchedCard/Training/Card_Equipment_Summary_Aug57.pdf.  With descriptions, photos and rental prices.
• Murray, Francis J. (1961). Mathematical Machines Volume 1: Digital Computers. Columbia University Press.  Has extensive descriptions of unit record machine construction.

External links

• Columbia University Computing History: IBM Tabulators and Accounting Machines
• Columbia University Computing History: IBM Calculators
• Columbia University Computing History: IBM Card Interpreters
• Columbia University Computing History: IBM Reproducing / Summary Punches
• Columbia University Computing History: IBM Collators
• Columbia University Computing History: L.J. Comrie From that site Comrie was the first to turn punched-card equipment to scientific use
• Early office museum
• IBM Archives
• IBM Punch Card Systems in the U.S. Army
• IBM early Card Reader and 1949 electronic Calculator video of unit record equipment in museum
• Still working Tabulating machines and punched card equipment in a German computer museum
• IBM Punched Card Accounting Machines (1955)
• IBM Punched Card Data Processing Principles (1961)