Data entry since 1970--from holleriths to holograms

Today, Jun 2000 by Haley, John

From keypunch, to key-to-tape, key-to-disk and now on-line data entry, one thing hasn't changed-data entry remains key to business success. Only the tools (and the workload) have changed.

Walking down a corridor, you come to a door with Data Processing stenciled on it. When you open the door, you hear the deafening sound of 300 workers typing on keypunch machines a sure clue that you are now in a data entry department, circa 1970.

Thirty years ago data entry was handled very differently from the way we do things today. Back then most information was entered into computers via Hollerith cards, or punch cards. Those 3 1/2" x 7" cards could hold up to 80 characters, with each character represented by a unique combination of holes punched into the card. Those cards would hold not only your data, but also your software program. The computer would read the cards and process the data according to the instructions in the program, printing your output on 11" x 17" green lined continuous form paper.

To put your data on the cards you would typically copy the information from the source document onto a keypunch form. That form would be sent to a centralized data entry department, where a pool of operatoys would be available to keypunch the data.

Of course, this process offered several ways for errors to sneak into the data: the information might be transcribed incorrectly or the operator might key in the wrong data. So to increase accuracy, most important data was double-key verified. In other words, it was keyed twice, by different operators. The verify machine compared each character on the card with the corresponding character keyed by the verify operator. When there was an error in the original card it had to be re-punched, but it remembered the correct data. Typical keying rates were about 5,000-6,000 keystrokes per hour.

Once the cards had been punched, they were submitted to the computer with a data validation program. Checks would be run to make sure the information was within reasonable ranges, and the result would be a computer printout showing any errors. Cards with mistakes would have to be re-punched and the validation jobs run again.

Finally, the data would be submitted with the actual data processing job.

This process was cumbersome, time-consuming and expensive. It might take several days to run one job. So around 1970 we started to see several innovations in data entry.

Data Entry Systems

The first innovation was the introduction of machines designed specifically to enter data into computers. One of the most popular was the old Mohawk key-to-tape machines. Later, key-to-disk machines were developed by Four-Phase, Entrex, Inforex and others. These systems replaced keypunch machines, significantly increasing productivity. With the old keypunch machines, operators had been held back because the machine could only move cards so quickly. By eliminating the cards, operators could reach close to their maximum keying speed. Speeds of 12,000 keystrokes per hour (KPH) became the norm and stellar keyers could hit 18,000-20,000 KPH. Incidentally, those speeds and accuracy rates are exceedingly higher than today's input systems using typical Windows programs.

Another advantage to these machines was that they could validate the data as it was keyed. Range checks, simple table lookups and date validations helped cut down on errors and reduced the amount of data that needed to be double-key verified.

OCR

The early 1970s also saw the beginning of the production use of optical character recognition (OCR) for high volume data entry applications. Initially, the most successful production application was for processing credit card vouchers.

At that time, credit cards used the "country club" billing system. At the end of each month, the card holder would receive a statement along with copies of each voucher he or she signed. The vouchers were two- or three-part forms that would have a manual imprint of the card number, the amount of the purchase and the customer's signature. Those forms were sent to a central site for processing. Each transaction had to be keypunched onto a card and manually sorted by account number.

With OCR, the card numbers could be read by machine and sorted by account number. This eliminated the need for keypunching and resulted in huge productivity and time savings.

Outsourcing Service bureaus, first introduced in the mid to late 1960s, were just starting to catch on. Outsourcing was a relatively new concept then, and one that was still alien to most companies. Some of the service bureaus offered time-sharing, allowing small and mid-sized companies that couldn't afford their own mainframe computers to rent time to run their applications. Others processed payroll, general ledger and similar jobs on a batch basis. They would accept data and software, run the jobs and send back printout output reports.

Online Terminals

Another innovation was the development of online terminals for mainframe computers. These terminals allowed operators to enter data directly into the computer for the first time. For many applications this was a huge productivity improvement. It became possible to key directly from the source document, avoiding transcription of the data.