PUNCH CARD SYSTEM

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 77, 12 August 1942, Page 4

PUNCH CARD SYSTEM

SORTING OUT THE R.A.I . Essential facts about each of the thousands of member? of the R.A.F. are now being sorted out by a special machine at the rale of 4l)0 a minute. Particulars about the man. where he is, what he is doing, are entered up on separate cards. The tacts are first represented by tifiy holes punched in the cards; the cards are then automatically checked up by another machine and placed in a sorting machine which mechanically groups and arranges them at a speed cf 24.000 an hour. They finally go into a tabulating machine which "translates” the holes into words and figures! Apart Horn the RA F., hundreds of the machines arc to-day helping to speed Britain’s war effort in factories producing aeroplanes, ships, guns and all types of munitions of war in different parts of the country, where they provide hourly records of output, of progress of orders, or availability of stocks, in short, all the information essential for co ordinating efforts to speed up and increase output. The War Office has them and they have recently been supplied to Australia’s Ministry of Munitions. Tne Egyptian Fost Office in Cairo is using them too with cards done in Arabic, tor accounting work. Scotland Yard has introduced them for its statistics; and to-day they are also busily recording births, deaths, marriages accident figures and Board