Evening star., 1949-10-31
EIectronic Store Clerks
Held q Possibility Soon
Devices May Replace 8 Million
Keeping Track of Sales

Devices May Replace Million
Keeping Track of Sales
By Thomas r. Henry
Electronic department store clerks are
possibility in the next few years.
They may largely replace 100000 now
employed principally in keeping track Of
sales activities.
Authority for this statement Is the In
dustrial Bulletin Of the Arthur D. Little Co.
of Cambridge, which claims that the ma
chinery already is in blue print stage, al
though not commercially available.
Says the bulletin:
If all the repetitive clerical work involv-
ing customers accounts, inventories, pay
rolls, tax deductions and statistics could be
done by machines, the result would be COM
parable to the advantage Of machine tools
over hand labor in production. The tech
niQueS of electronic computers grated onto
those now employed in such machines as
cash registers and automatic accounting ma
chimes, and onto devices now under devel-
opment, such as printers to produce one
or two thousand lines per minute, can be
used to effect virtual clerical revolution
"A large retail store, for example, may
spend half million dollars year on wages
to clerks who make out customers bills
from illegible hand-written sales slips, keep
inventories up to date, and provide statis-
tical information to the stores buyers by
laboriously sorting the stubs of merchan-
disc tags. 1t is now possible to build ma
chimes to transmit this information directly
from the cash registers to central compu-
ter. The main information fed in would be
the identity of the customer, the salesman
and the merchandise.
If this information were on punched
card to be read by the sales register, it
could be done in far less time than a sales
man now takes to write a sales slip. With
this and other information in the machines
vast memory it could print monthly bills
and current merchandising information for
the buyers. and could figure the salespersons'
commission"
Useful for Census Studies.
These possibilities, it is explained. lie In
the future, but a good start has been made
and at least one large insurance company
now has computer on order. 1t is expected
that electronic computers will analyze the
mass OF data obtained in the 1850 census
and extract a wealth of information on the
economic life of the Nation. Electronic COM
puters for payrolls and other accounting
functions now are being produced. They will
take data on pay rates, deductions, etc., from
punched cards and compute the payment
10 times faster than the punched card ma
chine itself can do it.
computer now being developed may be
the heart of the electronic all-weather con-
troll system for commercial planes now
planned by the Federal Government. This
control system is to be installed by 1868 at
cost OF $1.1l3 100000. A plane on take-off
will file landing reservation with the COM
puter at its destination and will receive a
provisional landing plan, which takes ac-
count OF weather and other aerial traffic,
within three minutes. In flight the planes
position Is continuously reported by radar to
the computer, which instructs the plane to
correct any deviation from flight plan. The
system will permit landing planes at two
minute intervals, instead of 10 minutes now
needed in bad weather. Without the CON-
puter, the calculations involved would be
hopeless.
Seven vitamins still are unisolated.
The high probability of their existence Is
shown by animal experiments but their
place in human diet is quite problematical.
The unknown factors are listed for the
Nutrition Foundation by DR.. B. s. Schweig-
ert OF the University of Chicago One, it
has become demonstrated, is essential for
the full growth Of chicks. It is found in COW
and hen manure, in liver extracts and fish.
and IN distillery wastes. Still another is re-
qu1red by turkeys. It exists in fish meal.
A third is required for laying hatehable
eggs It is contained in COW manure, meat
scraps, fish meal and skim milk In fresh
liver. liver extracts and milk is factor es-
sential for the growth of dogs, monkeys,
foxes and minks. It apparently is quite diff.
ferent from the extremely potent growth
and anti-anemia factor recently isolated.
Essential for the growth of rats is a So
called nutrient X found in liver extracts,
beef and skim milk For growth and repro
duction Of the rabbit, cotton rat and mouse
q quite different substance also found in liver
extracts and beef is essential.
1t is quite probable, Dr. Schweigert points
out. that there may be some duplication in
this list. A single substance in different
forms may turn out later to be responsible
Tor several of the effects noted.
While the effects Of these factors on hui
mans is unknown, their existence stresses
the desirability of wide variety of foods,
including meat products, in the diet.
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