Word: scanners
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...newest wonder of the electronic age is a machine that can read and digest and retain what it reads-even if it takes no special pleasure in curling up with a good book. Known in industry as the optical scanner, it operates roughly on the principle of the human eye, has already earned the obvious Orwellian nickname...
...With the help of light beams, video and mirrors, the optical scanner moves rapidly across letters, numbers and handwriting, breaks them down into "machine language," or electrical impulses, and passes them along for an analysis to an electronic computer (see diagram). The scanner can do the work of from 25 to 100 people better and faster than they could, rarely makes errors, and does not need time out for coffee breaks...
...burgeoning field of data processing, involving everything from billing customers to registering book club memberships, the optical scanner is a major, long-awaited breakthrough. The chief limitation of computers-aside from their inability to think except as told-is that they can record and process information only as fast as they are fed it, usually by bored and fallible humans who read the information, then punch it onto cards or tape for the computer. With the optical scanner, which can read up to 96,000 cards per day, the computer-and every paper-laden company-has found a powerful ally...
...vast and alluring is the potential of the optical scanner that Farrington's competitors are doubling their efforts to bring out their own scanners. IBM is testing several models, and RCA will soon field-test a pilot model to handle subscriptions at a major publishing house. Addressograph-Multigraph Corp. has its first orders for optical readers from major oil Companies. National Data Processing
...credit cards and automatic accounting systems. Four years ago Farrington moved into one of the highway's larg-« est plants (354,000 sq. ft.), there prints credit cards (for Hilton, 35 oil companies, all the airlines), manufactures printed circuits. It also produces a remarkable machine: an electronic scanner that reads, then transmits the information it has read onto cards or tapes that can be used by IBM machines and other automated systems. Expected sales this year: $12 million...