Patent GB-271096-A (GB)
Title: Improvements in or relating to record-card-controlled statistical machines
Filed: 1927-05-12
Abstract: 271,096. British Tabulating Machine Co., Ltd., (Assignees of Bryce, J. W., and Mills, A. W.). May 13, 1926, [Convention date]. Statistical apparatus.-A statistical machine for dealing with Hollerith type cards and in which the operation of the registering, recording or other device depends upon the time in its cycle at which it receives an impulse, is provided with an impulse-changing device, which (the card hole positions being read in sequence) receives an impulse from the card in one cycle and emits a corresponding impulse to the register &c. in another cycle but in a revised order, e.g. in reversed order for complements. The impulse-changing device comprises a unit 20 for each card column coacting with a counter of the usual electromagnetic clutch type. In each unit a gear wheel 84, driven from the main shaft 24, carries four cams 35, shown separately in Fig. 4, each having three or four camming points and a restoriiig cam point 36. A magnet 37 for each impulsechanging unit has four armatures 40 attached to levers 41 pivoted at 42 and having at their upper ends recesses 43 in which are locked lugs 45 on four levers 44 pivoted at 46 and carrying contact blades A - - D. Projections 47 on the levers 44 coact with the cams 35, the camming points of which are so arranged that when a card hole is read the appropriate lugs on the cams release certain armature levers 41 corresponding to the complement of the card hole read which levers are thereupon attracted to the left (magnet 37 being energized from the card hole). Normally, the magnet 37 tends to attract all four armatures but can only do so for those of which the corresponding Locking-levers 44 have been depressed. When a (ever 41 is attracted and the cam 35 has passed that lever 44, the latter rises further than normal by reason of a spring 50 and stop 51 and the lug 45 locks the lever 41 in the attracted position. Later in the cycle the cam 36 restores these parts to normal. Thus, for any card hole read, contact blades A - - D are depressed corresponding to the complement of the value of the card hole. In Fig. 8 the left-hand set of brushes A - - D is set to represent " 8," the complement of card hole " 2." Subsequently, brushes 60, Figs. 1 and 8, rotate over a commutator 61 for each card column to translate and to operate the counter magnet 67 at the correct differential time as in Specification 270,305. A preferred construction of commutator is illustrated in the Specification. The Specification as open to inspection under Sect. 91 (3) (a) describes also the adaptation of the machine to code cards, as shown in Fig. 5 (Cancelled). The four cams are replaced by a single cam 35, Fig. 7 (Cancelled), having four successive cam points, one for each lever 44, and by a single restoring cam 36 common to all four levers 44. The points on this cam 35, Fig. 7 (Cancelled), successively depress the projections 47 on the levers 44 at the instant that the reading brush is at the four perforation index points of the code card. Thus the levers 44 and blades A - - D are operated to retain the code reading which is later translated by commutators as in Fig. 8. This subject-matter does not appear in the Specification as accepted.