GB395704A - Improvements in or relating to statistical machines - Google Patents

Abstract

395,704. Statistical machines. BRITISH TABULATING MACHINE CO., Ltd., Victoria. House, Vernon Place, Southampton Row, London. Jan. 18, 1932, No. 1511. Convention date, Jan. 19, 1931. [Class 106 (i).] Sorting cards ; total-taking.-To sort vouchers such as cheques, record-cards are perforated to correspond to the vouchers and the reading from the cards is used to sort the vouchers into boxes. For this, the invention comprises in combination keyboard - controlled punching mechanism for perforating record cards, a cardreading device and mechanism operable by the card-reading to sort the vouchers. Adding mechanism 10 is used of conventional type and is driven by a motor 12 with a one revolution clutch and controlled by switch 11. Shaft 13 drives the sorting devices. When amount keys 15 and non-adding keys 16, 17 (e.g. for the account numbers) are depressed according to the visual reading from the voucher which has been inserted in slot 23, the amount &c. is listed and added and subsequently when desired a total is printed on a record roll by the attachment 20 of known construction; also the keys 15, 16, 17 control the perforation, by known mechanism 18, of a Hollerith card from stack 21 with the corresponding amount and other data. The perforated record-card is fed to a station 22 and the voucher is fed past endorsing mechanism 24 to a plate 25. The machine then comes to rest. At each such operation of the machine the card and voucher are moved step by step past the sorting boxes. These boxes are arranged in a double row, one row 39 for the cards and a row 39v for the vouchers. Each pair of correlated deflectors 38, 38v is rigid on a common shaft 45. A shaft 28, driven by a Geneva device 27 from shaft 13, carries a pair of sprockets 29 and a second pair 30, Fig. 3. Wheels 29 drive a pair of chains 31 having rollers 34 running on rails 36 and having fingers 32 for propelling the cards. Similarly chains 31v and fingers 32v propel the vouchers. There are twenty-four boxes 39 and twentyfour boxes 39v, sorting being effected on two columns of the cards in combination. At the reading station 42 just prior to each deflector 39 (there are no reading stations for the vouchers) the card is read by a single, or a pair of, brushes 41 positioned according to the number of the box. This sorting is similar to that described in Specification 243,354, [Class 106 (i), Calculating &c.]. If the position of brushes 41 at a reading station correspond to the perforations in the card at that station, a circuit is completed through contact blocks 40, Fig 8, to energize the corresponding magnet 44, which thereupon raises the corresponding deflector 39 to divert the card into the box. The corresponding deflector 39v is also raised by the common shaft 45 to divert the correlated voucher into its sorting box. Any sorting box may be put out of use by opening a switch 49 ; 48 is the control magnet for the one revolution clutch in casing 12. Unsorted cards are diverted by a fixed deflector into a final cardreject box, and the corresponding vouchers are similarly sorted to a voucher-reject box.