Patent GB-893792-A (GB)
Title: Improvements in or relating to information reading and reproducing machines
Inventor: BRAUN KARL J
Filed: 1957-05-30
Abstract: 893,792. Selective punching machines. KIMBALL CO., A. Aug. 28, 1958 [May 30, 1957], No. 17184/57. Class 31 (2). A machine for use in reading information from a succession of record cards A and reproducing such information on successive tabulating cards has means for feeding interspersed detail and master cards one at a time first to a control sensing station L, Fig. 3, which determines whether the card is a master card or a detail card, and then to an information reading station X, control means operated by the sensing means at the station L determining the manner in which the information on a card at this station will be treated when the card is subsequently read at the station X. The master cards, which are distinguished from the detail cards by a hole in a particular position in one column of the card, are interspersed with the detail cards in a magazine MA which feeds the cards one at a time to the station L by a picker knife 83; the tabulating cards B, Fig. 6, are simultaneously fed one at a time from a second magazine to punching means 131. If the card A at the station L is sensed as a master card, it sets the machine so that when the card arrives at the station X all the master information on the card is sensed and stored in the machine ; as successive detail cards, which have no effect in the station L, are then fed to the station X, their detail information is sensed and punched in corresponding tabulating cards in one field of the cards while the stored master information is punched in another field of the cards. The same master information is therefore punched into each of the tabulating cards B simultaneously with detail information read from corresponding detail cards until a new master card is sensed at the station L, when the feed of the tabulating cards is temporarily stopped, the stored master information cleared and the new information set up instead. The card feed means is by wormdriven rollers, and two cam-shafts are provided in the machine for controlling its cyclic operation. A master card at the station L is sensed by means of four sensing wires 95a . . . 95d, Fig. 14, each passing through a tube 96a to a position above the relevant columns of the card. The opposite end of the respective wires are fixed in U-shaped tubes 99a which are slidably mounted in an oscillating unit M controlled from one of the cam shafts and bear against corresponding spring - pressed slides 86a . . . 86d associated with latches 88a . . . 88d co-operating with a notched arm 90. Movement of the unit M to the left projects the wires 95a . . . 95d into sensing contact with the card and, if a master card is sensed, the wire 95a enters the special hole and rocks the latch 88a so that, when later in the cycle the notched arm is permitted to drop, a notch 89 in the arm engages the latch ; subsequent movement of the unit M to the right to withdraw the wires from the card results in the latch moving the arm to the left and so setting the mechanism as described below. Sensing of any other hole by the sensing wires and consequent rocking of the other latches has no effect on the arm 90. The information reading unit X to which the card is then fed comprises for each column of the card four sensing wires 95, Fig. 8, which are mounted similarly to the wires 95a . . . 95d in the oscillating unit M so that the sensing wires 95 sense the card at the station X while the sensing wires 95a . . . 95d are sensing the card at the station L; the wires 95 act through spring-pressed slides 86 to operate latches 92 controlling vertically-disposed decoding slides 112 adapted in turn to control the horizontal movements of set-up pins 113 associated with aligned recording pins 114. The slides 112 are so controlled by springs 132 and linkage 136, 137 from one of the cam-shafts that at an appropriate point in the cycle the slides rise and become set in accordance with whichever of the latches 92 have been rocked by the sensing wires 95. Leftward movement of the pins 114 by a plate 115 actuated by linkages 122 from one of the cam-shafts serves to align the pins 113, 114 with each other, and on the return movement all the pins 113 not blocked by the slides 112 are moved to the right by springs 124 so that projections on corresponding pins 114 rock appropriate tumbler pins 91 against tension-springs 125 so as to align them with either master set-up pins 126 or detail set-up pins 127 depending upon which of these sets is then in the same vertical plane as the tumbler pins. At this stage, the tumbler pins 91 are moved downwardly as a unit by linkage 128 from one of the cam-shafts and the selected tumbler pins depress the corresponding set-up pins 126 or 127 ; whichever of these pins is so depressed acts through a flexible wiring unit E, Fig. 6, to set up information in a set-bar basket K. The pins 126, 127 are urged upwardly between the fixed lower plate 195, Fig. 8, and a transversely-movable upper plate 196 by springs 197, the latter plate being moved, when a master card is sensed, to bring the set-up pins 126, instead of the pins 127, into the same vertical plane as the pins 92. Assuming now that the card at the station L is sensed as a master card, then the movement of the arm 90, Fig. 14, as described above, acts through linkage to set cam-operated mechanism so that in the next cycle of the machine when the master card is fed to the station X and sensed, (a) the feed of the tabulating cards is stopped by means of a latch in the feed mechanism, (b) the information already set up in the master part of the set-bar baskets K is wiped out by the actuation of a bar 182, Fig. 6, and (c) the plate 195, Fig. 8, is moved transversely to position the master set-up pins 126 for control by the tumbler pins 91 and the setting-up of the master information in the set-bar baskets K; the information set up in the detail part of the set-bar baskets is wiped out in each machine cycle by a bar 187, Fig. 6, actuated from one of the cam-shafts. Upon successive machine cycles and assuming only detail cards are then fed to the stations L, X, the mechanism is set so that the feed of the tabulating cards is re-started and the detail information sensed at the station X and set up in the baskets K, together with the master information stored in the baskets, is punched by the means 131, Fig. 6, in the corresponding tabulating cards. When employing master and detail cards which in their detail position have four transverse groups of columns representing respectively the initial price and first, second and third modified prices of an article, the machine is arranged so that, if a card read at the station L is a master card, all the prices punched in the card will be transferred to the set bar baskets K, while if the card is a detail card only the latest price will be so transferred. For this purpose, the groups of tumbler pins 91 corresponding to the initial price and first and second modified price groups of columns pass loosely through slots in three slides 216, 216a, 216b, Fig. 10, which prevent the operative tumbler pins 91 from being positioned over the corresponding detail pins 127 unless the slides are free to move to the right ; the movement of the slides is therefore controlled by linkages 211, 215 which are actuated by latches 210, 210a, 210b associated with the sensing wires 95 of the first, second and third modified price columns and co-operate with a comb 219 in such manner that only the latest price is transferred. In a master cycle, the comb 219 is moved so that all the slides are free to move and the whole of the detail information is transferred to the set-bar baskets for punching in the corresponding tabulating card. Specifications 711,565 and 753,063 are referred to.