R.A.F. RECORDS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 18 September 1942, Page 4

R.A.F. RECORDS

USE OF SPECIAL MACHINES. Essential facts about each of the thousands of members of the R.A.F. are now being sorted out by a special machine at the rate of 400 a minute. Particulars about the man, where he is, what he is doing, are entered up on separate cards. The facts are first represented by tiny holes punched in the cards; the cards are then automatically checked up by another machine and placed in a sorting machine which mechanically groups and arranges them at a speed of 24,000 an hour. They finally go into a tabulating machine which “translates the holes into words and figures. Apart from the R.A.F., hundreds 01 machines are today helping to speed Britain’s war effort in factories producing aeroplanes, ships, guns and all types of munitions of war in different parts of the country, where they provide hourly records of output, of progress of orders, of availability o stocks —in short all the information essential for co-ordinating efforts o speed up and increase output. The War Office has them and they have recently been supplied to Australia's Ministry of Munitions. The Egyptian Post Offife in Cairo is using them too, with cards done in Arabic, for’ accounting work. Scotland Yard has introduced them for its statistics; and today they are also busily recording births, deaths, marriages, accident figures and Board of Trade returns.