B chapter.indd - Charles Babbage Institute - University of Minnesota

Erwin Tomash Library
Baehne, George Walter Baeza, Lodoico
The problems faced by university registrars seem to
have changed little since this volume was written—only
the numbers of students and equipment available to
process them have modified the situation. The methods
used to process data were based on the capabilities of
the equipment. For example, it was possible to sort
punched cards on a single column (character) at a time.
A digit was represented by a single punch in any of ten
possible rows in the column, but an alphabetic character
required two punches out of each column. This meant
that sorting cards alphabetically required two passes
through the sorter for each column of the data field. Thus
alphabetizing a class list would take two passes through
the sorter for each character in the student’s name
field—a non-trivial amount of work. The University of
Oregon describes a system it adopted to break the range
of possible student names into ten thousand parts and
assign a four-digit code number to each – thus the list
could be alphabetized by only sorting on 4 digits instead
of many alphabetic columns.
This volume is valuable in that it contains a complete
description of the IBM/Hollerith equipment of the pre–
World War II period. The machines are reproduced in the
illustrations.
Illustrations available:
Title page
Equipment essay ( 6 pages)
University of Oregon name code
Punched card equipment, B 73
Card sorter, B 73
B 74
Baeza, Lodoico (ca.1550)
B 73
Numerandi doctrina præ clara methodo exposita, in
qua breviter continentur, & exponuntur apertè ea, quæ
ex universa arithmetica sunt ad usum potiora.
Year: 1555
Place: Paris
Publisher: Gulielmum Cavellat
Edition: 1st
Language: Latin
Figures: 1 folding plate (f.54)
Binding: contemporary paper wrappers
Pagination: ff. 67, [1]
Collation: A–H 8 I 4
Size: 161x97 mm
Reference: Smith Rara, p. 269
B 74
Lodoico Baeza is known only as a Spanish scholar from
the mid-sixteenth century.
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