Tangible Media: Removable Storage of Image, Sound, Motion and Data
Tangible Media: Removable Storage of Image, Sound, Motion and Data
Tangible Media: Removable Storage of Image, Sound, Motion and Data
Holes
Termatrex

Title:

Termatrex System

Date:

1960s

Material:

Card stock

Company:

Jonkers Business Machines

One card from a database capable of handling 10,000 unique items (the number of locations available to drill holes). The number of attributes is limited only by the number of cards. This particular database has thousands of attributes.

The Termatrex system was invented by Frederick Jonker, who started out as an assistant professor of engineering at the University of Delaware. A small number of systems were sold, but computers were just emerging as the way to manage information. The selling point was that the system was inexpensive and simple enough for customers who had relatively small amounts of data to manage. According to Jonker, the company was exploring ways to handle much larger amounts of data automatically, but the company went bankrupt in 1958 (Management and Business 1960, 19–25).

A card for a database of electronic components. The holes in this card represent the components that have the attributes typed at the top
A 1966 Termatrex system for a database of chemicals at the Crompton & Knowles Research Center in Gibraltar, Pennsylvania. Each chemical is assigned a location on the interior of the cards. The operator drills a hole through a card to indicate that the attribute applies to the chemical associated with that location. Running a query entails stacking the cards for desired attributes on the light box to the right.
Science History Institute
References
⌃  Back to citationManagement and Business Automation. 1960. Jonker's Approach to Information Retrieval. Vol. 4, no. 5 (Nov., 1960).