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The Mechanical Office

17 important questions on The Mechanical Office

What was the top 4 machine suppliers?

- Remington Rand: supplier of typewriters.
- Burroughs: adding machines.
- IBM: punched card accounting machines.
- NCR: accounting machines.

How led the typewriter to office machine industry and the computer industry of nowadays?

- Trough the perfection of the product and low-cost manufacture.
- A sales organisation to sell the product.
- A training organisation to enable workers to use technology.

When was the first modern filling system introduced?

In the early 1890s. It won a gold medal at the 1893 World's Fair. James Rand invented an index system with colored strips that was 4 times faster than the previous one. Also invented later the Kardex system: it combined advantages of the index system with the potential for unlimited expansion and instant retrieval. Rand junior turned the company into the largest business-machine company in the world.
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Who were trying to solve the problems that Thomas de Colmar of Alsace was having?

Dorr E. Felt and William S. Burroughs tried to solve these problems with their machines: the comptometer and Burroughs Adding Machine. Only Burroughs succeeded.

What was a major input for the development of the adding machine industry?

The introduction of a new tax law that adapted progressive tax rates and the withholding tax from pay.

How did Burroughs survive?

- Not only supplying adding machines but also how to incorporate them in companies.
- They didn't solely rely on one product.

Who invented the first cash register?

The Dayton restaurateur: James Ritty. His machine showed the amount of the sale at the top of the machine and recorded all the sales on a paper inside the machine.

Who bought the only machine from James Ritty?

John H. Patterson. Patterson later sold more than 2000 machines a year under the name National Cash Register Company. He established an invention department which was later copied by other companies.

After Patterson died, who developed the Class 2000 accounting machine?

NCR. NCR was important for the computer age because it shaped the marketing of business machines and established the key sales practices of the industry.

What are the key sales practices of the industry that NCR established?

- Introduced the sale quota
- Literature of the NCR
- Sales training

In comparison with the typewriter and the adding machine, what machine industry was slowly developing?

The punched card machine industry. Hollerith tried to make it an office machine but failed because of his lack of knowledge of business machines. The Consensus Bureau engaged with Powers, who had a machine that printed results.

Since the Consensus Bureau engaged with Powers, what did Hollerith do?

He perfected his machines so that they were automatic and by 1911, he had 100 customers. Hollerith had to sell his company due to his doctor's advice and financial state.

Who took over Hollerith's company?

Charles R. Flint. He merged the Tabulating Machine Company, Computing Scale Company and the International Time Recording Company into Computing Tabulating Recording: C-T-R. C-T-R later turned into IBM.

Why was IBM successful?

- Development of a sales organisation based on NCR.
- The rent and refill nature of the punched card machine business made IBM recession proof by:
       - Renting the punched card business and not selling.
       - Punchcard-card sales.
- Technical innovation.

Who is Thomas J. Watson?

After a career as top salesman for the NCR, Watson became general manager of C-T-R. In 1924 Watson renamed the C-T-R company to International Business Machines (IBM). The THINK motto he invented at NCR was also found in every IBM office.

How did Watson improve in his career?

He became president of the American Chamber of Commerce and later International Chamber of Commerce. He was also friend/advisor of President Roosevelt.

What caused the Social Security Act (1935)?

It became necessary for the federal government to maintain the employment records of the entire working population. Later the New Deal legislation created obligations for employers in the private sector to comply with federal demands for information on which welfare, National Recovery Act codes, and public work projects were dependent. This resulted in that IBM became the greatest supplier in the office machine world.

The question on the page originate from the summary of the following study material:

Computer: A history of the information machine

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