Patent GB-871545-A (GB)
IPC: G07C1/18
Abstract: 871,545. Mechanical digital-data storage apparatus; workmen's time-recorders. INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORPORATION. Jan. 20, 1958 [Jan. 19, 1957; Sept. 21, 1957], No. 1899/58. Classes 106 (1) and 106 (4). Data registering-apparatus comprises a number of remote input stations 1a, 1b, 1c, Fig. 7, each with mechanism 6 for sensing data on data-bearing records and with associated mechanism 5 for storing sensed data, and mechanism 9 successively scanning the stores 5 and controlling apparatus 11 at a central station 8 to record data received during the scans. The stores may be situated at the remote stations or at the central station. The data may be recorded on a strip 13, sensed and recorded again on cards 14. When used as a workmen's time-recorder, each employee enters his data by means of an individual key or punched card at a remote station and a clock 10 enters time data at the central station. A suitable unit for storing data in the form of eighty seven-figure numbers comprises seven groups of four pins 16, Figs. 1, 2, arranged along eighty radial rows of a disc, each group of four representing a decimal digit in binary code. Each pin 16 has two positions, being raised when set so that it can block the path of a sensing lever 1 when the pins 16 are scanned in succession along a row. Two switches 43, 44 are operated selectively, according to whether or not the operative sensing lever 1 is blocked by a pin 16, and each introduces a different resistance into a circuit, thus setting up a pattern of pulses to represent the data set. A group cam 4 and pulse cam 5 are used to determine the order in which twenty-eight sensing levers 1, arranged radially, become operative to feel for their corresponding pins 16 in the row presented to them. The cam 5 makes eight revolutions for each revolution of the cam 4 and each lever 28 becomes operative to feel for the presence or absence of a pin 16 when it is simultaneously presented with a recess in both cams 4, 5. The cam 4 has seven peripheral recesses each covering an eighth of the periphery and extending axially over four pin spaces and the cam 5 has seven sets of four peripheral recesses each covering a sixth of the periphery and extending over a single pin space, With this arrangement the twenty-eight levers 1 become operative one at a time in succession with a gap between every four causing the pulse pattern to occur in groups of four. The pins 16 of the row just scanned are reset before the pin-carrying disc 27 is turned, to present the next radial row of pins 16 to the row of levers 1, by means of a bar 47 reciprocated by a cam 45 once in every revolution of the cam 5, but which is effective to reset the pins by a cam 48 acting on a lever 3 during the last part of the revolution of the cam 4. The pin-carrying storage disc 27, Fig. 2, has a peripheral tooth 21 between each row of pins 16. These teeth 21 are engaged by a gear-wheel 25 fast on a shaft 29 carrying a wheel 24 with twelve ball pins 28. The balls 28 successively engage a cam track 23 which turns with the cam 4 so that the disc 27 is advanced to present the next row of pins 16 for scanning. The operative portion of the cam corresponds to the inoperative portion of the cam 4. At the input station 49, a row of plungers is selectively movable to set the pins in the adjacent row in a pattern determined by the shape of an employee's key. As soon as the first row of pins has been set, a microswitch is closed. When a scanning impulse reaches the storage unit from the central station and finds the microswitch closed, an electromagnet operates a single rotation clutch on the shaft of the cam 4 and all the data stored is transferred to the central station. When a scanning impulse finds the microswitch open indicating that there is no data stored in the unit, it passes direct to the next unit.