The IBM 402 and IBM 403 Accounting Machines were

tabulating machine The tabulating machine was an electromechanical machine designed to assist in summarizing information stored on punched cards. Invented by Herman Hollerith, the machine was developed to help process data for the 1890 U.S. Census. Later model ...

s introduced by International Business Machines in the late 1940s.

Overview

The 402 could read

punched card A punched card (also punch card or punched-card) is a piece of stiff paper that holds digital data represented by the presence or absence of holes in predefined positions. Punched cards were once common in data processing applications or to di ...

s at a speed of 80 to 150 cards per minute, depending on process options, while printing data at a speed of up to 100 lines per minute. The built-in

line printer A line printer prints one entire line of text before advancing to another line. Most early line printers were impact printers. Line printers are mostly associated with unit record equipment and the early days of digital computing, but the ...

used 43 alpha-numerical type bars (left-side) and 45 numerical type bars (right-side, shorter bars) to print a total of 88 positions across a line of a report. The IBM 403 added the ability to print up to three lines, such as a multiline shipping address, from a single punchcard, instead of just one line per card with the 402. The 402 and 403 were primarily controlled by a removable control panel. Additional controls included a

carriage control tape A carriage control tape was a loop of punched tape that was used to synchronize rapid vertical page movement in most IBM and many other line printer A line printer prints one entire line of text before advancing to another line. Most ear ...

and mechanical levers called hammersplits and hammerlocks, that controlled some printing functions. Both the and were considered smaller models of the prior model IBM 405. In July 2010, a group from the

Computer History Museum The Computer History Museum (CHM) is a museum of computer history, located in Mountain View, California. The museum presents stories and artifacts of Silicon Valley and the information age, and explores the computing revolution and its impact o ...

reported that an IBM 402 was still in operation at Sparkler Filters, Inc., a manufacturing company that produces chemical filtration systems, in

Conroe, Texas Conroe is a city in and the county seat of Montgomery County, Texas, United States, about north of Houston. It is a principal city in the metropolitan area. As of 2021, the population was 98,081, up from 56,207 in 2010. Since 2007, the ...

, still as of 2022 the company's accounting and payroll is done on the oldest American computer in service within the United States of America or elsewhere on the Earth.Visit to a working IBM 402 in Conroe, Texas
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References

External links

IBM History: 402 developed in 1948 or 1949

* ttp://www.pcworld.com/article/249951/if_it_aint_broke_dont_fix_it_ancient_computers_in_use_today.html Company that still uses IBM 402 {{DEFAULTSORT:Ibm 402

402 __NOTOC__ Year 402 ( CDII) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Arcadius and Honorius (or, less frequently, year 1155 ' ...

Overview

See also

References

External links