GB868644A - Improvements in or relating to data selector systems - Google Patents

Abstract

868,644. Digital electric data-storage apparatus. INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORPORATION. March 21, 1958 [March 25, 1957], No. 9222/58. Claas 106 (1). An electric data selector system comprises means for reading character representations from a magnetic tape carrying one or more records each consisting of a group of such representations, counting means connected to said reading means and adapted to count the character representations and records read, and means under control of said counting means for selectively transferring representations from said reading means to a storage means. A machine, controlled by pre-plugging, is described for selecting certain data, as determined by the plugging, from a magnetic tape store and transferring it to an output machine which can be, for example, a printer or a card punch. In operation, selected data read from the tape unit, Fig. 1, is passed via two synchronizing registers SR-1 and SR-2 which correct for " skew," and a buffer translator which recodes data from a six-bit code used on the tape to a twelve-bit code, into a buffer store constituted by a 12 Î 160 array of magnetic cores. The data is then read out of the core matrix buffer store via relay circuitry to the output machine (punch or printer). Longitudinal and transverse parity checks are made as data is fed to the buffer store and data actually produced (i.e. punched or printed) by the output machine is compared with the data that was in the buffer store. The buffer store comprises a 12 x 160 matrix of magnetic cores 151, Fig. 16, and has associated with it a 160 stage thyratron ring 160 and a 160 core row memory 170. Data is read into the matrix column-by-column, the columns being primed in succession by the thyratron ring and data is read out row-byrow, each row being read in turn, into the core row memory 170 which is read-out serially before the next row of the matrix is read. The non-return-to-zero form of magnetic recording as described in Specification 748,996, which is referred to, is used on the tape.