Patent GB-943871-A (GB)
Title: Tabulation systems for type-composing machines
IPC: B41B27/00
Filed: 1959-12-15
Abstract: 943,871. Photographic type-composing apparatus. INTERNATIONAL PHOTON CORPORATION. Dec. 15, 1959 [Dec. 29, 1958], No. 42536/59. Drawings to Specification. Heading B6W. A type-composing machine adapted for tabulation comprises character storage means for receiving during line composition codedinformation significant of the identities of successively selected type-characters to be transcribed as a justified line of text; coding means for inserting a tabulating code CD into the storage means during line composition at one or more positions which mark the boundaries between the columns into which the next recorded line is to be tabulated; a justification unit for calculating during line composition when the line stored in the storage means is capable of being transcribed in an aesthetically acceptable justified form; a transcription unit for transcribing the stored line on to a recording surface; a displacement mechanism for effecting relative movements between the recording surface and the transcription unit during transcription of a line to introduce between successively transcribed characters spaces modified when necessary by the justification unit to justify the stored line; a transcription accumulator AT for receiving space values significant of the relative displacements produced by the displacement mechanism and for storing a total significant of the sum of the space values; a tabulation accumulator ML formed of memory elements arranged in groups individually for the storage of width-values significant of the widths of the respective columns; a tabulating code sensing circuit responsive to the reading of a tabulating code CD from the storage means during transcription to enter in a preselected group of memory elements of the tabulation accumulator ML a width value obtained from the value stored in the transcription accumulator AT and significant of the justified length of the transcribed line or a selected part thereof preceding the code CD; and circuitry operable during transcription of the next line to form a column therein commencing at a position determined by the width-value stored in said predetermined group of the tabulation accumulator ML. As described the invention is applied to the photographic type composing machine described in Specification 857,791 but in place of the single line length accumulator BI set to the complement of the line length as by keys and filled as the line is recorded, there is provided a group of memory elements each of which groups corresponds to a column to be recorded and may be set either manually by keys or from the transcription accumulator AT as set out above. Each line in a column may thus be transcribed as a single line with multiple justification operation so that end-of-line " carriage return " operation occurs only when transcription of the last column is complete (referred to as horizontal tabulation). Provision is made for leaving blank columns by suitable plug connecting circuits to relays bringing into operation the appropriate groups of the tabulation accumulator ML. Detailed description is given with reference to a complex relay circuit of horizontal tabulation with justified, quad right, quad left and centred column lines, vertical tabulation with similarly varied column lines in the same column, and of the production within a line of text of fractions with centred numerator and denominator.