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Edge-notched Card
Edge-notched cards or edge-punched cards are a system used to store a small amount of binary or logical data on paper index cards, encoded via the presence or absence of notches in the edges of the cards. The notches allowed efficient sorting and selecting of specific cards matching multiple desired criteria, from a larger number of cards in a paper-based database of information. In the mid-20th century they were sold under names such as Cope-Chat cards, E-Z Sort cards, McBee Keysort, and Indecks cards. Overview Edge-notched cards are a manual data storage and manipulation technology used for specialized data storage and cataloging applications through much of the 20th century. An early instance of something like this methodology appeared in 1904. While there were many variants, by the mid-20th century a popular version consisted of paperboard cards with holes punched at regular intervals along all four edges, a short distance in from the edges. The center of the card might b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Corporate Library
A corporate library is a special library serving the staff at a corporation. The information services provided by corporate libraries save employees time, and can aid in competitive intelligence work. An information strategist supports the work of an organization through the corporate library. By offering a corporate library to employees, the corporation is able to encourage learning and give people opportunities for growth and development that may not be offered elsewhere. Corporate libraries also offer the opportunity for employees to share ideas in regards work related tasks or special projects needing to be completed. Corporate libraries may act as an agent for fulfilling certain needs in the business, patent, personnel, and safety areas of the corporation. A corporate library may be structured as a vital service for research, providing necessary materials on business and marketing, management and personal development, and safety procedures. Corporate libraries may also help e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Unit Record Equipment
Starting at the end of the nineteenth century, well before the advent of electronic computers, data processing was performed using electromechanical machines collectively referred to as unit record equipment, electric accounting machines (EAM) or tabulating machines. Unit record machines came to be as ubiquitous in industry and government in the first two-thirds of the twentieth century as computers became in the last third. They allowed large volume, sophisticated data-processing tasks to be accomplished before electronic computers were invented and while they were still in their infancy. This data processing was accomplished by processing punched cards through various unit record machines in a carefully choreographed progression. This progression, or flow, from machine to machine was often planned and documented with detailed flowcharts that used standardized symbols for documents and the various machine functions. All but the earliest machines had high-speed mechanical feeders ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tag (metadata)
In information systems, a tag is a keyword or term assigned to a piece of information (such as an Internet bookmark, multimedia, database record, or computer file). This kind of metadata helps describe an item and allows it to be found again by browsing or searching. Tags are generally chosen informally and personally by the item's creator or by its viewer, depending on the system, although they may also be chosen from a controlled vocabulary. Tagging was popularized by websites associated with Web 2.0 and is an important feature of many Web 2.0 services. It is now also part of other database systems, desktop applications, and operating systems. Overview People use tags to aid classification, mark ownership, note boundaries, and indicate online identity. Tags may take the form of words, images, or other identifying marks. An analogous example of tags in the physical world is museum object tagging. People were using textual keywords to classify information and obje ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Royal McBee
The Royal Typewriter Company is a manufacturer of typewriters founded in January 1904. It was headquartered in New York City with its factory in Hartford, Connecticut. History The Royal Typewriter Company was founded by Edward B. Hess and Lewis C. Myers in January 1904 in a machine shop in Brooklyn, New York. The next year, Hess and Myers turned to Thomas Fortune Ryan, to whom they demonstrated a prototype typewriter. Their machine had numerous innovations including a friction-free, ball-bearing, one-track rail to support the weight of the carriage, a new paper feed, a lighter and faster typebar action, and complete visibility of the words as they are typed. Ryan put up $220,000 in exchange for financial control. In March 1906 the first Royal typewriter, the Royal Standard, was sold. The Royal Standard was set apart from its competition by its 'flatbed' design. With demand increasing, Royal purchased 5¼ acres in Hartford, Connecticut, as the new site for its manufacturing fa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Radix Sort
In computer science, radix sort is a non-comparative sorting algorithm. It avoids comparison by creating and distributing elements into buckets according to their radix. For elements with more than one significant digit, this bucketing process is repeated for each digit, while preserving the ordering of the prior step, until all digits have been considered. For this reason, radix sort has also been called bucket sort and digital sort. Radix sort can be applied to data that can be sorted lexicographically, be they integers, words, punch cards, playing cards, or the mail. History Radix sort dates back as far as 1887 to the work of Herman Hollerith on tabulating machines. Radix sorting algorithms came into common use as a way to sort punched cards as early as 1923. Donald Knuth. ''The Art of Computer Programming'', Volume 3: ''Sorting and Searching'', Third Edition. Addison-Wesley, 1997. . Section 5.2.5: Sorting by Distribution, pp. 168–179. The first memory-effici ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paper Data Storage
Paper data storage refers to the use of paper as a data storage device. This includes writing, illustrating, and the use of data that can be interpreted by a machine or is the result of the functioning of a machine. A defining feature of paper data storage is the ability of humans to produce it with only simple tools and interpret it visually. Though now mostly obsolete, paper was once an important form of computer data storage as both paper tape and punch cards were a common staple of working with computers before the 1980s. History Before paper was used for storing data, it had been used in several applications for storing instructions to specify a machine's operation. The earliest use of paper to store instructions for a machine was the work of Basile Bouchon who, in 1725, used punched paper rolls to control textile looms. This technology was later developed into the wildly successful Jacquard loom. The 19th century saw several other uses of paper for controlling machines. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hash Value
A hash function is any function that can be used to map data of arbitrary size to fixed-size values. The values returned by a hash function are called ''hash values'', ''hash codes'', ''digests'', or simply ''hashes''. The values are usually used to index a fixed-size table called a ''hash table''. Use of a hash function to index a hash table is called ''hashing'' or ''scatter storage addressing''. Hash functions and their associated hash tables are used in data storage and retrieval applications to access data in a small and nearly constant time per retrieval. They require an amount of storage space only fractionally greater than the total space required for the data or records themselves. Hashing is a computationally and storage space-efficient form of data access that avoids the non-constant access time of ordered and unordered lists and structured trees, and the often exponential storage requirements of direct access of state spaces of large or variable-length keys. Use o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bucket Sort
Bucket sort, or bin sort, is a sorting algorithm that works by distributing the elements of an array into a number of buckets. Each bucket is then sorted individually, either using a different sorting algorithm, or by recursively applying the bucket sorting algorithm. It is a distribution sort, a generalization of pigeonhole sort that allows multiple keys per bucket, and is a cousin of radix sort in the most-to-least significant digit flavor. Bucket sort can be implemented with comparisons and therefore can also be considered a comparison sort algorithm. The computational complexity depends on the algorithm used to sort each bucket, the number of buckets to use, and whether the input is uniformly distributed. Bucket sort works as follows: # Set up an array of initially empty "buckets". # Scatter: Go over the original array, putting each object in its bucket. # Sort each non-empty bucket. # Gather: Visit the buckets in order and put all elements back into the original array. P ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marge Piercy
Marge Piercy (born March 31, 1936) is an American progressive activist and writer. Her work includes '' Woman on the Edge of Time''; ''He, She and It'', which won the 1993 Arthur C. Clarke Award; and ''Gone to Soldiers'', a New York Times Best Seller and a sweeping historical novel set during World War II. Piercy's work is rooted in her Jewish heritage, Communist social and political activism, and feminist ideals. Life Family and early life Marge Piercy was born in Detroit, Michigan to Bert (Bunnin) Piercy and Robert Piercy. While her father was non-religious from a Presbyterian background, she was raised Jewish by her mother and her Orthodox Jewish maternal grandmother, who gave Piercy the Hebrew name of Marah. On her childhood and Jewish identity, Piercy said: "Jews and blacks were always lumped together when I grew up. I didn’t grow up 'white.' Jews weren't white. My first boyfriend was black. I didn't find out I was white until we spent time in Baltimore and I went to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hole Punch
A hole punch, also known as hole puncher, or paper puncher, is an office tool that is used to create holes in sheets of paper, often for the purpose of collecting the sheets in a binder or folder. A ''hole punch'' can also refer to similar tools for other materials, such as leather, cloth, or plastic or metal sheets. Mechanism The essential parts of a hole punch are the ''handle'', the ''punch head'', and the ''die''. The punch head is typically a cylinder, with a flat end called the ''face''. The die is a flat plate, with a hole matching the head. The head can move, while the die is fixed in place. Both head and die are usually made of a hard metal, with precise tolerances. One or more sheets of paper are inserted between the head and the die, with the flat face of the head parallel to the surface of the sheets. Moving the handle pushes the head straight through the sheets of paper. The hard edge of the punch vs the die cuts a hole in the paper, pushing the cut ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Relational Database
A relational database is a (most commonly digital) database based on the relational model of data, as proposed by E. F. Codd in 1970. A system used to maintain relational databases is a relational database management system (RDBMS). Many relational database systems are equipped with the option of using the SQL (Structured Query Language) for querying and maintaining the database. History The term "relational database" was first defined by E. F. Codd at IBM in 1970. Codd introduced the term in his research paper "A Relational Model of Data for Large Shared Data Banks". In this paper and later papers, he defined what he meant by "relational". One well-known definition of what constitutes a relational database system is composed of Codd's 12 rules. However, no commercial implementations of the relational model conform to all of Codd's rules, so the term has gradually come to describe a broader class of database systems, which at a minimum: # Present the data to the user as rel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
