GB243354A - Improvements in or relating to sorting devices for statistical record-cards - Google Patents

Abstract

243,354. British Tabulating Machine Co., Ltd., (Assignees of Bryce, J. W.). Nov. 19, 1924, [Convention date]. Statistical sorting machines.- Sorting apparatus, in which Peirce code cards are read in motion, comprises ten sorting compartments to each of which is allotted a reading device comprising one or two electric brushes arranged according to one of the ten combinations of the code used, so that all the brushes of any one device must make contact simultaneously at the correct moment in the card cycle if the corresponding deflector is to be raised to divert the card. Each reading device is adjustable transversely to coact with any card-column and each card is first read by two reading devices, each of which reads several card columns simultaneously, and each of which works upon a different field of the card as at Y and Z, Fig. 9. In addition to the two special compartments and the ten usual ones there is the reject compartment R. The " 5 " reading device is after the " o," Fig. 11<a>, in order that other cards such as a " 3," perforated at C, Fig. 10, may not be wrongly sorted into the " 5 " compartment. Energization of a magnet 107, Figs. 11, 11<a>, and 3, attracts an armature 119 which unlatches a member 110, therebv allowing the deflector 108 to be spring-raised. All raised deflectors are restored later bv a bar 113 and pins 117. Cam contacts 126, Fig. 11<a>, close momentarily to render live the lines 222, 223, 225 at the instant that the cards are. in the correct reading positions relative to the card-reading devices. If then at any one station contact is made at all the brushes simultaneously a circuit is completed to energize the appropriate magnet 107 and deflect the card. For the fields Y and Z of four columns each the brushes are connected up through plug-boards according to the code and to the particular number it is desired to work on. In Fig. 11 field Y is connected for sorting on the number 3785. The card-feeding rollers and cardfeed picker blade mechanism are as described in Specification 242,654. Specification 243,362 also is referred to. The Specification as open to inspection under Sect. 91 (3) (a) included switches 130 in the circuits of the magnets 107. This subject-matter does not appear in the Specification as accepted.