Office Automation Computers: Integrated Data Processing 1956 IBM Burroughs NCR ELECOM Bell Teletype

Today we examine over 25 different vintage data processing machines from 1940's to 1956, many IBM machines, the ELECOM 50 Electronic Accounting Machine, Remington Rand, Burroughs Western Union and Bell Systems Teletypes, punch card, punched paper tape, magnetic tape and more. Exceptionally good full color details of various office women operating accounting machines, loading punched paper tape programs, using data entry and teletype machines and various data recording equipment types in action. Merging of electronic computation systems with telecommunications in the early days of office automation. INTEGRATED DATA PROCESSING or "IDP" fundamentals explored and explained. Products from over 10 different technology manufacturers. Includes original narration and full color, original rare footage of machines in action. Runtime: 25 mins.

For review and discussion, an excellent historical documentary from National Office Management Association provides the foundation for this look back into the mid-20th century electric and electronic office systems for FINANCE, BANKING, TELECOMMUNICATIONS, DATA TRANSMISSION and more. Hope you enjoy! Comments are welcome. (Computer History Archives Project)

2k and 4k Stock Footage available from Periscope Film

Additional Information Sources:

IBM History at IBM Media Center

The IBM Punch Card (Tabulating Card history)

Historical Timeline of Burroughs Adding Machine Company (and Computers)

Oral History of Evelyn Berezin (ELECOM, Redactron, Teleregister, Digitronics)
The Computer History Museum, Mountain View, CA

Bell System Memorial Home Page

YouTube Video: Office Automation & Business Machines 1947
(Computer History Archives Project)

[exxzxxe]

Excellent- brings back old memories. Started on IBM 1620 with punched card input and output in 1958.

[ericwood]

I love the design aesthetic of these machines.

[NipkowDisk]

Thank you once again for this look back at data processing history!!

[James_Knott]

Back in the 70s, I used to maintain Teletype equipment. While I had training on the models 15 & 19 mentioned in this video, I never had occasion to work on them. I worked on the later models 28, 32, 33 and 35 Teletypes. Typing reperferators were mentioned in a couple of places. These received Teletype signals and both printed on and punched a tape. However, instead of cleanly punching the holes, as was usually done, they partially punched the hole, leaving a flap of paper. This is so the printing could still be read after punching. The text was offset from the corresponding holes by a couple of inches. Later on, I also worked on punch card equipment and computers. Also, in the text at about 23:40, the company Teleregister was mentioned. I worked on one of their systems in the Toronto Stock Exchange. This system was used to transmit stock prices to brokers offices, where they'd be displayed on a big board. That equipment was older than I was! It was built with vacuum tubes and relays and used a magnetic drum for storage.

[lorensims]

When I was learning Business Data Processing at the local tech school not far from here, we were taught to keep as much information in a machine-readable format as demonstrated here.
The advantage of punchcards is that they're also human readable.
Requiring any human transcription or entry of information introduces delay and the possibility of errors.
The very first computer programs I wrote were in IBM 360/370 Macro Assembly Language and entered with punchcards.

[rebokfleetfoot]

they were mechanical wonders, even today when you see a modern mainframe spitting out tax bills, it's like, how on earth does that not jam up?

[dontown-lbke]

I operated 2 computers @ a NCR Data Center in 1973: NCR 510& 520. The 510 used punched paper tape for it programs. The computer only had 4K memory! Prior to that while @ High school in 1969 I sent one of the 1st "e-mails" to nearby SFU here in Canada using a Telex machine hooked to an acoustic modem via a telephone handset. Later during the late 1970s I worked @ a Visa Credit card center where I collated punched IBM cards which were sent back to customers as their statements.

[karlbesser]

In our school in 1956 we were told that the job of a puncher had a great future.

[alexkuhn]

as a present-day accountant, it is AMAZING how much of this is familiar to me. Except instead of teletypes from the 50s we use a mainframe from the 80s

[thesteelrodent]

Thanks for uploading this :) I grew up with magnetic tape and floppy disks, and have had a hard time wrapping my head around how they did data processing with paper tape and punch cards - it's not really explained properly anywhere. But this film does a grand job at it, and really, a lot of what they describe isn't all that dissimilar to what we do with SQL in modern apps, with referential table lookups and comparing data back and forth between different sources

[rebokfleetfoot]

gosh, i'm that old? i recall feeding my program into a punch card machine, only to have it come back a day later with a syntax error :)

[frenchcreekvalley]

I didn't realize that there was so much dependence on paper tape back then. Yes, it was still around in about 1960 when I started servicing 33's and still in use around the early 1970's or so to wake up (boot) a minicomputer, but to a far lesser degree.

[frankowalker]

Thank you for giving us a look at these wonderful machines. That was fascinating.

[clayz]

They would construct special rooms to house this equipment, with glass walls so customers could see how modern and efficient this outfit is. Millions of dollars worth of equipment, designed to save time and above all, paper. This could all be seen from the company lobby with tape reels, input punch cards, output punch cards. stacks of cards for what purpose ? Programs running on the reels. BIG paper savings due to not having to re-enter data already loaded up.

[RaymondHng]

This 25-minute video takes 344, 744, 050 bytes of storage as an MP4 file. If we were to store that file on punch cards using only eight rows (one for each bit), it will take *4, 309, 300.625 punch cards.* Since each card is 0.007 inches thick, the stack of cards will be 30, 165.1 inches high, *2, 513.75 feet tall, * or 2, 154.6 boxes of cards at 2, 000 cards per box. 16, 500 punch cards weigh 99 pounds, so this stack of 4, 309, 300.625 cards will be 25, 855.8 pounds. A card reader reading at 600 cards per minute, will take 7, 182.1 minutes or *119.7 hours* to read 4, 309, 300.625 punch cards.

But instead of wasting four rows, let's use use all twelve rows of the card. Then we can store 120 bytes per card. This video will take *2, 872, 867 punch cards, * stacked 20, 110 inches high, 1, 675.8 feet tall, or 1, 436.4 boxes. That's a lot of trees. And it will take *79.8 hours* to read them. The 2, 872, 867 punch cards will weigh 17, 237.2 pounds.

[clayz]

SEND ME TO THE TABULATING DEPARTMENT STAT!

[SusanAmberBruce]

You could call this video Beauty and the Beast 🤔😉
Is UNIVAC a large computer or is it a vacuum cleaner you can use the world over

[lutello]

Paper tape drive with a takeup reel? What sorcery is this?

[meldenslick]

Paper tape. sounds so quaint now, but it was everywhere.