- IBM Electromatic Table Printing Machine
The
IBM Electromatic Table Printing Machine was a typesetting-quality printer, consisting of a modified IBM Electromatic Proportional Spacing Typewriter connected to a modifiedIBM 016 keypunch. Aplug-board was used for programming and formatting of the printout.A deck of
punched card s containing the table (calculated and punched by otherunit record equipment ) to be printed was put into the IBM 016, which read them and then controlled the typing of the typewriter through a box containingsolenoids that depressed the keys.Printed output could then be photographically reproduced on a
printing plate , which would be used in aprinting press to make as many copies as needed.Development
Columbia University Astronomy ProfessorWallace Eckert was examining the process used by the Navy to produce Air Almanacs. Deciding that the manual computation techniques used were too slow and error prone, he recommending automating the process with existing punch card based unit record equipment. One of the hardest problems was getting a high-quality printout of the tables. InitiallyIBM 405 accounting machines with special modifications were used, but he wanted something better. In1941 Eckert developed a specification for a card-driven composing typewriter and asked IBM to design and build it.The first Electromatic Table Printing Machine was delivered to him in
1945 . It produced it first Air Almanac in1946 .External links
* [http://www.columbia.edu/acis/history/tableprinter.html The US Naval Observatory Table Printer - 1945]
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