1950s

Hickok Cardmatic Tube Tester (late 1950s – late 1960s)

The Hickok Cardmatic name was used a number of different of models (both military and civilian) of vacuum tube (valve) testers. These used plastic punched cards to configure the settings on the device to test specific models of vacuum tube. Due to the number of models of tube available at the time, thousands of cards were required to cover all of them, and the cheaper models came with a few hundred of the most commonly needed card but it was also possible to create additional cards using the blank cards supplied with the tester and a special punch.

The cards had 187 different hole positions, in 17 rows of 11, and so the card reader had 187 electrical contacts for supplying configuration information to the tester, which also offered a range of sockets for plugging in different types of tube.

A small number of other tube testers also used punched cards, including the Western Electric KS-15874 (a rebadged Hickok Cardmatic 1234B), the RCA WT-110A, the TeleTest DynaMatic and the B&K Model 675 Dyna-Quik.

By the mid-1960s, transistors began to replace vacuum tubes in electronic devices.

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Mark Sense card (early 1930s – 1970s)

Mark Sense technology was developed as an automated test scoring system in the early 1930s by a teacher, Reynold B. Johnson, and it allowed data to be read from a punched card after being marked by the student with a special pencil that contained electrically conductive graphite. Johnson went on to work for IBM who bought the rights to Mark Sense, or electrographic technology, and released the IBM 805 Test Scoring Machine in 1937.

Mark Sense card were also used for purposes such as medical questionnaires, opinion polls, meter readings and class scheduling.

In some instances, the Mark Sense card was read by a machine (such as the IBM Reproducing Punch, first introduced in 1949) and then punched according to where the marks were, for subsequent use in a standard punched card reader.

The technology was widely used in from the 1940s to 1960s, but was superseded by optical mark recognition technology in the 1960s (also sometime wrongly called ‘mark sense’) that could simply read the marks optically.

IBM withdrew its last Reproducing Punch, the 514, in 1978.

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Reig Verbena Organ No. 728 barrel piano roll (1950s – 1960s)

The Reig Verbena Organ No. 728 was a children’s 15-note barrel piano using a plastic barrel (or roll) and was made by Claudio Reig S.A. in Spain. The rolls are interchangeable, and instructions on changing them were provided on the back of the instrument. The instrument itself resembled a small piano, and was just 39 cm high. The barrel was 28 cm wide and offered four different tunes, selected by turning a cam that shifted the position of the barrel.

Despite being called an organ it was a barrel piano. This is different to a barrel organ, which is a form of pipe organ and this barrel piano by contrast used tuned steel rods. Turning the barrel caused the pins to move hammers to strike the rods, and in this case also percussion including cymbals and bells.

It’s not clear when this model of barrel piano was produced by Reig, but it appears to be the 1950s or 1960s.

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Super slides (1957 – early 1980s)

So-called super slides use photographic film mounted in a standard 2-inch square slide frame. They offered a larger film area than standard 135 film slides, and when projected in a standard slide projector could offer a much larger image.

Frank Rizzatti at Burleigh-Brooks in New York came up with the idea of super slides sometime around 1956-57, at a time when shooting 135 transparency film to mount in slides was very popular and many homes had a slide projector. Initially, he used 120 film cut down to size to fit in 2-inch square slide frame, but someone had the idea of using 127 format film.

Although 127 film has been around since 1912, it was not popular by the end of the 1950s. The introduction of cameras such as the Baby Rollei in 1957, followed by cameras from other manufacturers including Kodak (with models such as the Brownie Super 27) and the Sawyer’s Mark IV, meant a resurgance in 127 film sales.

Super slides using 127 format film offered an area 85% larger (40 mm × 40mm) than 135 format slides (24 mm × 36 mm) and offered greater clarity or a larger projected image. They would also fit in standard slide projectors.

The novelty of super slides faded after the mid-1960s and Kodak discontinued its 127 format cameras around 1970, probably in part due to the introduction in 1963 of its Instamatic range of cameras that used 126 cartridge film.

Super slides continued longer in the form of slide sets available for sale at tourist attractions, such as the Pana-Vue range produced by Sawyer’s Inc. (and later GAF) into the early 1980s.

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AT&T Peatrophone (1951 – mid 1950s)

The Peatrophone was AT&T’s first commercial telephone answering machine, a device in a metal box weighing 18 kg. The Peatrophone was manufactured for AT&T by Gray Manufacturing Company, who also made the Gray Audograph dictation machine.

The Peatrophone used two vinylite phonograph discs for operation, both of which were embossed by the machine in the manner of the Audograph, and so could not be erased for re-use. The smaller of the two discs (L2) was four inches in diameter and was used to record up to two outgoing messages or announcements (one on each side) of up to 30 seconds. The larger disc (L1) was for recording incoming messages and was eight inches in diameter. This could store up to 130 25-second messages on each side.

Only the larger of the two turntables in the device was capable of embossing a recording onto the discs, so the smaller disc was placed on the larger turntable to record the outgoing message, before being placed on the smaller turntable for playback.

Spare discs were stored in the lid of the device.

The machine could be used in announcement mode only, with just the smaller disc in use.

It’s not clear how long the Peatrophone was sold for, but it appears to have have had a limited life and is very rare now.

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Magnetic ledger card (late 1950s – early 1980s)

Starting in the late 1950s, a number of computer systems (sometimes known as magnetic accounts computers or visible records computers) were developed for accounting purposes that were a hybrid of electronic and mechanical accounting technologies, using a magnetic ledger card as one means of data storage.

These cards stored data in a magnetic strip on the card, but were also printed with the same human-readable information. Some cards had magnetic strips on one side only, and some on both sides.

The cards had a printed header area for storing relatively stable information (such as an employee’s details) and an area for information that needed regular updating (such as the employee’s earnings record). Magnetic ledger cards could be used to handle tasks such as billing, inventory, accounts and payroll.

Systems using magnetic ledger cards included the National Cash Register Class 390, the IBM 6400 Accounting Machine, the Friden 6010 Electronic Computer, the General Electric GE-225, the Nixdorf System 820, the Kienzle 6000, and the Philips P354 Visible Records Computer.

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16 mm microfilm (1925 – 2000s)

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16 mm microfilm was used to store reduced-size photographs of documents that can then be viewed in a microfilm reader that magnifies the image to a readable size. 16 mm microfilm was generally used to store images of documents that were A3, A4, or Letter size, or even smaller sizes such as bank cheques or betting slips, whereas 35 mm microfilm tended to be used for larger documents such as newspapers or engineering drawings.

16 mm microfilm was first used commercially to take pictures of bank cheques, and a machine called the Checkograph was introduced in 1925 for this purpose. The 16 mm film format was relatively new at this stage, having been introduced in 1923.

The film itself is unperforated, and may have one continuous strip of images (simplex) or two lines of images where the front and back need to be stored together (duplex). It generally comes in lengths of 100 feet, 130 feet or 215 feet. Film in 215 foot lengths was thinner and tended to be used for duplex microfilming of documents such as bank cheques, insurance documents or and medical forms.

The film could be stored on an open reel, or it could be housed inside a cartridge.

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Autochrome Lumière (1907 – 1955)

Paris: Aux Champs Elyseés, 1914. On glass Verascope Stereoview

Autochrome was one of the very first practical method of colour photography (the similar Jougla Omnicolore was introduced a few months previously) and was first marketed by the Lumière brothers in 1907, becoming widely used before the advent of subtractive colour film in the 1930s.

Autochrome used an additive method, with a glass plate coated in microscopic grains of potato starch that were dyed red-orange, green, or blue-violet, underneath a panchromatic photographic emulsion. The plates needed longer exposures than contemporary black and white photography (about thirty times more). Although there was no need for any special camera, there was a need for a yellow filter to correct the over-sensitivity to blue light, and a tripod was needed for the long exposures.

The resulting positive image was quite dark and needed bright light for viewing. Autochrome plates could be viewed with a special stand called a diascope, that offered a brighter image, or they could be projected with a magic lantern but they needed a very powerful light. Unfortunately, Autochrome images on glass plates were difficult for artistic photographers to exhibit and so most autochromes were taken by amateur photographers.

The Autochrome process produces images that are considered very attractive and dreamlike. Stereoscopic Autochromes were available, and combined both colour and depth.

Despite being much more expensive that monochrome plates, the Lumière factory was making 6,000 autochrome plates a day by 1913, in a range of different sizes.

From 1932, film versions of Autochrome became available, but faced competition from new subtractive colour films such as Kodachrome and Agfacolour Neu. Autochrome film was finally discontinued in 1955.

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AGA Agavox (1955 – mid 1970s)

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The Agavox was an office dictation machine introduced by the Swedish company AGA.

It appears to have been introduced around 1955, with a revised version (the Agavox 2) introduced in the early 1960s with a flatter design and side-loading. The Agavox 2 could be used as part of a special unit that could house six Agavox machines for remote dictation by telephone.

The Agavox system used flexible pre-grooved magnetic discs of 22 cm diameter (around 8.5 inches), offering up to 12 minutes of recording time. The grooves were on one side, with the magnetic surface on the other. A separate time indicator could be placed in the machine, and then clipped to the disc for reference.

The Agavox system appears to have been in use until the mid 1970s.

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Minox film slides (late 1940s – 2003)

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The Minox camera was a subminiature camera first produced in 1937. It used very small film cartridges with unperforated film that produced images just 8 × 11 mm in size.

Initially produced in Latvia, production stopped in 1943 and was then restarted in Germany in 1948. The camera was high-quality and expensive, and become both a luxury item and a tool for spying. The Minox camera was developed over time through several versions, and added features such as autoexposure, as well as a range of accessories including a projector for use with Minox slides.

It is unclear when the first black and white slide (reversal) films were made available for Minox cameras, but since the first slide projector was introduced in 1950, it may have been prior to this. The first colour slide film for the Minox was made by Agfacolor in 1954.

The first projector, introduced in 1950, was made by the Hollyslide Company at the request of the American Minox subsidiary. It could project direct from the transparency holder, or from Minox slide film mounted in standard 2-inch slide mounts.

The Minox HP30 projector line followed in 1954, and this was followed by the HP24 in 1970. Some models offered semi-automatic operation, autofocus and remote control, and the HP24 offered the ability to connect a cassette player to control the projector (rather like a tape-slide set). Some models could project slides from 16 mm film or 110 film.

Minox discontinued production of the HP24 slide projector in 1988, but continued to produce Minochrome slide film until 2003.

It is still possible to obtain reversal film (and negative film) for the Minox from some sources, or it is possible to use a film slitter to make film for the Minox from 35 mm film.

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