These machines appear in just about every computer history time line I’ve ever seen. In 1911 the Hollerith Tabulating Machine company merged with the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company and the patents for these tabulators became the basis for their primary product line of punched card systems. You might know C-T-R better by it’s current name.
As an aside, one thing I’ve noticed as I’ve started scanning earlier and earlier magazines is that sometime in the late 1920’s somebody decided that paragraphs that ran the length of an entire page were not entirely helpful and writers started making them much shorter. Whoever is responsible for this change has my profound thanks.
If you’d like to see how the technology advanced, here are articles about the 1940 , 1950 and 1960 censuses.
THE MECHANICAL WORK OF THE TWELFTH CENSUS.
BY EDWARD W. BYRN.
Now that the Census Bureau has been made a permanent branch of the government, it attains the dignity and importance which its merits deserve. A popular impression prevailing among a large number of people is that the main part of the work of the Census is the taking of it, that is to say, the gathering of the data. That nothing could be more erroneous is evidenced by the fact that by legislative enactment a single month only was allowed for the taking of the Twelfth Census, while two years were given within which to tabulate the data. The data collected can have no meaning or value to the legislator and the student of sociology and political economy until classified into categories which form a basis for comparisons and conclusions.
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Penniless INVENTOR Gets Million for Photo Machine
Ten years ago a penniless prisoner of the Bolsheviks; today an American millionaire! This fascinating story tells how a young Russian inventor persevered through years of discouragement and finally perfected a machine for taking automatic photos which he sold for a million dollars.
By ORVILLE H. KNEEN
BEGINNING in 1888 with the first crude gum-dispenser, hundreds of different steel-encased, gear-spring, lever-plus salesmen have been invented, down to the latest which pleasantly says “thank you” as it digests your nickel. But until a few short months ago the very idea of automatic portraiture seemed absurd. Certainly anyone familiar with the complicated and highly technical process of adjusting the light, posing a trembling sitter, waiting for an elusive smile or appearance of sanity, developing and fixing plate or film, and finally making recognizable prints, would be the last to turn the job over to machinery.
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I had no idea that people were working on in-flight refueling this early.
FILLING STATIONS of the SKY
How Fuel Is Passed From One Plane to Another to Keep Record Shattering Endurance Flyers Aloft Hour After Hour Ever wonder how endurance flyers managed to take on fuel, oil and food when on their record-breaking jaunts? The special technique employed by their sky tank wagons is graphically explained in the drawings and photos on these pages.
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The Age of Mechanical Marvels
ICE age, stone age, steel age, and now— The Age of Mechanical Miracles!
And we are living in the midst of it! Within a bare score of years airplanes have developed from frail-powered kites to tremendous craft that span oceans in one jump. Radio has disclosed its miracles in millions of homes, and is reaching out toward the wonders of television.
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In 1938 New York had roughly seven million people and the FDNY had ONE ambulance. Wow.
New Hospital on Wheels
By John E. Lodge
BRINGS FIRST AID TO MEN WHO FIGHT NEW YORK’S FIRES FIVE-ALARM FIRE! Thirty-five engines and trucks racing through the streets before dawn. Three hundred crack smoke eaters battling a block-square conflagration. That was the scene, a few weeks ago, when 3,000,000 feet of lumber in a big Brooklyn, N.Y., yard turned into billowing clouds of smoke and darting streamers of flame.
For hours, the firemen fought to keep the blaze from spreading. One man was carried out with a broken leg. Another was hurried from the scene with blood streaming from a gashed hand. Still others staggered about with eyes so inflamed they could hardly see. By the time the blaze was under control, twenty-one firemen were on the injured list. In aiding them, New York City’s new $10,000 fire ambulance—an amazingly complete, ninety-mile-an-hour hospital on wheels—played an important part. The big fire was its spectacular initiation into service.
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How The Flying Saucer Works
If you haven’t seen saucers yet, you will—and they’ll be built to Air Force specifications.
By Willy Ley
Editor’s Note: Ever since 1950 when TRUE The Man’s Magazine discussed existence of flying saucers, the world press has been continuously interested in the flight possibilities of disc-shaped aircraft. The most recent Air Force report on flying saucers, issued in November 1955, states that there are rational explanations for practically all the so-called flying saucer “spottings.” Most interesting portion of the Air Force report to many readers, however, was the section dealing with America’s plans for building a disc-shaped aircraft capable of vertical flight and easy maneuverability. To bring you more details on exactly how such a craft would operate, we have asked the world-famed authority on rockets and guided missiles, Willy Ley, to visualize for us how the craft now under development for the U.S. Air Force might be constructed in the light of what is now known about jet propulsion and vertical flight. Mr. Ley’s observations are based on conversations with VTO authorities in the U.S. and on a lifetime of research in jet propulsion and rocket-powered flight.
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SLICING BREAD by Machinery
New Machine Delivers Fresh Bread Loaves Ready Sliced.
Housewives can now buy fresh bread all sliced and ready to serve. Slicing machine is capable of turning out more than 1,200 loaves hourly to be packed in shallow carton and wrapped in waxed paper. Inventor overcame many difficulties in perfecting device.
ONE of the newest conveniences for the housewife and dining place operators, and one of the most far reaching, is the recently introduced automatic bread slicer invented by O. F. Rohwedder of Davenport, Iowa.
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New Radio Pen Reproduces Pictures Put on the Air
BROADCAST listeners may soon receive comic strips, bridge problems, and road maps over the air through a new device known as a radio pen, now under experimental development by John V. L. Hogan, New York radio inventor. The machine is a simplified adaptation, for home use, of commercial high-speed facsimile apparatus, and is housed in a metal cabinet no larger than a typewriter. An electrical pen traces ink pictures, broadcast from the transmitting studio, upon a moving paper strip four inches wide, requiring about two and a half minutes to complete a sketch.
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LINOLEUM- Another Industrial “Accident”
An inventive mind and a can of paint left open by accident were the co-founders of the great linoleum industry. Its manufacture is as strange as its origin.
THROUGH all the centuries man’s progress is reflected in the homes he has kept, and is readily traceable in the floors of those homes. Prehistoric men paid little attention to floors, but when the long arm of the Caesars reached out into the Orient, they found floors of inlaid ebony, teakwood, mosaic and pearl, but only in the homes of the rich.
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Those look exactly like modern milk cartons, I wonder why it took so long for them to catch on.
Machine Bottles Milk in Paper
Wrapping milk or cream in paper is the unusual feat performed by a new machine for dairies. In one continuous operation, the device forms a container from paper, dips it in molten paraffin, cools it, fills it with milk, and seals it. A consumer receives a boxful of milk untouched by human hands in the packaging process. The paper containers are easily handled and occupy little space in a refrigerator. They are thrown away when empty. The new containers are a substitute for present-day milk bottles of glass, which must be washed and sterilized for re-use, and which are often lost or broken.
