GB788991A - Improvements in or relating to the storage of intelligence - Google Patents

Abstract

788,991. Telegraph exchange systems. STANDARD TELEPHONES & CABLES, Ltd. Jan. 15, 1954 [Jan. 23, 1953], No. 2014/53. Drawings to Specification. Class 40 (3). In an arrangement for storing information represented in coded form by means of a number of storage members associated with a number of sources of information, any number of free storage members can be allocated in turn to the same source of information to store successive parts of a single complete assemblage of information received from the said single source. The arrangement is described in connection with a telegraph exchange system in which the storage members are constituted by tracks on a magnetic drum and in which the signals received at the normal telegraph speed, e.g. 50 bauds, are passed to an electronic register from which the signal elements are transferred at a much greater rate to a storage track associated with the incoming line. When a complete message has been stored, or message material to a predetermined extent has been recorded on this line storage track, the elements recorded on the single primary storage track are passed to a free track of a set of common storage tracks, and successive portions of the message as received by the line track are allocated in turn to a number of free common storage tracks until the end-of-message signal is received. As the various portions of the message are transferred from the line track to the available common storage tracks, the number of the first storage track used is recorded on the line track and when the second portion of the message on the line track is transferred to a storage the designation of the first storage track is passed to a register track, the line track receives a recording indicating the number of the storage track on which the second part of the message is to be found. The indication on the register is used to find the first common storage track in which an indication is recorded as to the track on which the second part of the message is to be found. This process is continued until the final part of the message indicated by an end-of-message signal is received. During the transfer of the information from the line storage track to a common storage track, preliminary information concerning the message and comprising a number representing its priority, the number of the line circuit on which the message is received and the number of the common storage track on which the message, or the first part of it, is to be found, is recorded on a carrier track on the drum. This information is transferred to appropriate sections of a booking track which carries the relevant particulars of the messages in the time sequence as they are received. The booking track is employed to control the examination of the messages stored and to facilitate the action of one operator to dispose of the messages in correct order of priority to the appropriate outgoing lines. The circuits associated with the booking track comprise an arrangement for comparing the recorded priorities of the completed messages in order to determine the message of the highest priority and, when this has been found, to associate the common storage track containing the message or its first part with apparatus at an operator position to reproduce on a teleprinter the first line which includes the destination of the message so that its disposal can be effected by associating the common storage tracks with an outgoing line track from which the signals are passed to a register controlling the transmission of the signals to the outgoing line to which connection has been effected by the operator. Specifications 663,574, 713,902, [Group XL (c)], 762,094, 788,992 and 788,993 are referred to.