NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume L, Issue 15250, 13 March 1913, Page 6

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

THE COMING AGE OF PERFORATED PAPER. A writer in Cassier's Magazine suggests that the world— least the mechanical world—may one day be controlled and operated through the agency of-slips of perforated paper. Control of machinery by perforated paper was first devised and introduced by Joseph Marie Jacquard about a century ago, in the loom that rears his name. In the Jacquard loom perforated cards control the movements bo that predetermined patterns are woven, independently of the skill of the immediate operator. More recently the principle has been widely used in mechanical musical instrument players. Now we are asked to look forward to the working of all sorts of machine tools and even to the control and operation of railway trains by a similar system. Referring to the possibilities of perforated paper in the control of machines, the writer says :— The number of operations which may be controlled for any oifie machine is by no means limited, any nkore than the number of different 'musical compositions is limited for any piano equipped for use with the. perforated roll. . . . The unlimited possibilities of the Jacquard principle over any other thus constitutes one of its greatest advantages. Any change or modification in a series of operations with the paper strip may be made simply by preparing a different set of perforations, just as one written order of instructions supersedes another ; and thus it appears that a form of control in which instructions are positively combined with their execution is available for the most intricate manufacturing operations. The outcome of such a development would probably involve, as a matter for general instruction, the art of recording instructions by preparing such controlling strips, just as the introduction of the typewriting machine has developed an art supplementing that of ordinary handwriting. The manager, director, foreman, or other responsible individual may thus give his order, not by scribbling a few marks upon an order slip, but by punching a few holes in a card, which then becomes the medium by wßich the order is executed, without any of the opportunities for failure which must ever be present when it has to be filtered through various intelligences of uncertain capacity." Coming to the use of perforated paper on railways the writer —"Not only in the- control of. machining work, but also in the direction of larger operations, may the possibilities of the perforated strip be indicated. With the introduction of electric propulsion upon railways, it may become practicable to have the trains controlled wholly from fixed stations, the motors responding entirely to the movement of the strip through a transmitting mechanism. Thus the position of a train upon a section might be made to correspond at all times to the relative position of its controlling strip, the control, both as to position and rate of speed, being always kept in the hands of the operator, at the fixed station, himself continually in possession of information about all other trains upon the division. Wherever a wire can be run, such a control may be extended, so that operations at. points far distant might be synchronised in accordance with any desired plan. It is probable," he concludes, "that such applications of the perforated strip of paper will come, not all at once, but gradually, as its capabilities are perceived; but the tendency must be, as in all other departments of mechanical developments, to relieve human effort more and more from work which is of a mechanical and routine character, reserving it for things which include the exercise of varied intelligence and judgment."