| The Electric Accounting Machine (EAM) Supplies Division
was made an autonomous operating unit within IBM in
March 1956, and was responsible for miscellaneous data
processing materials, such as punched cards and magnetic
tapes, used in connection with various types of IBM
equipment. Robert Y.
Cadwallader was named as the division’s first
general manager.
The EAM Supplies Division initially had approximately
1,700 employees and handled the manufacture and development
of all supplies for IBM electric accounting machines
and electronic computers. (IBM’s supply business
had been handled previously by the EAM Division.) Punched
card manufacturing plants of the Supplies Division were
located in Washington,
D.C.; Greencastle,
Ind.; Endicott,
N.Y.; and San Jose,
Calif. A Magnetic Tape Testing Center (organized
in March 1955) was located in Minneapolis, Minn.
1958
To further improve its service to customers, the Supplies
Division dedicated a new card plant, serving the Southwest
United States, in Sherman,
Tex.; opened another plant at Dayton, N.J.; broke
ground for another plant at Concord, Mass.; and acquired
land at Campbell, Calif., for the future relocation
of its card manufacturing facility in San Jose, Calif.
The Supplies Division introduced the Port-A-Punch
on February 10 as a fast, accurate means of manually
punching holes in specially scored IBM punched cards.
Designed to fit in the pocket, Port-A-Punch made it
possible to create punched card documents anywhere.
In April, the division moved its card engineering
organization based in Endicott,
N.Y., to a new 53,000 square foot laboratory in
Vestal, N.Y.
1959
The Supplies Division added several new items to its
product line, including a “carbonless” paper
used in sets of punched cards and eliminating carbon
paper inserts, and “Durexcel” magnetic computer
tape. In addition, the division opened the 20,000 square
foot card plant in Concord in January, and began construction
of a new card plant in Campbell.
James E. Swaine, Jr.,
was named as the division’s general manager on
May 25.
1960
In January, the SD Supplies Center was moved from Vestal
to Dayton, N.J.
In February, SD realigned its manufacturing organization,
creating a new post of manager, card manufacturing.
In March, the SD Engineering Laboratory in Vestal was
realigned into six functional areas: product development,
equipment engineering, materials and processes, engineering
services, material and equipment procurement, and program
management.
In May, the Data Processing Division assumed full responsibility
for marketing Supplies Division products. Also that
month, the division moved to new headquarters at 717
Fifth Avenue in New York City.
In July, the move of card manufacturing from San Jose
to Campbell was completed with no interruption in customer
service.
In October, SD reported that its card production in
Endicott would be transferred to other Supplies Division
locations by October 1961.
In November, the division introduced a new line of
ribbons for special data processing applications.
Altogether in 1960, the division opened a new card
design center in Houston, Tex., and five new warehouses
in Omaha, Neb.; Des Moines, Ia.; St. Louis, Mo.; Syracuse,
N.Y.; and Rochester, Minn. As a result, punched card
users could discuss their more intricate card design
requirements with IBM experts at 19 U.S. locations and
receive prompt deliveries from a nationwide network
of 21 IBM card manufacturing plants and warehouses.
1961
The Supplies Division put a number of new products
into production including, on March 6, paper bank checks
imprinted with magnetic ink characters (SD had been
manufacturing punched card checks encoded with magnetic
ink characters since September 1959).
The division’s product line was broadened in
October by the introduction of Hypertape.
Development work on new supplies was carried out during
the year at the division’s engineering laboratories
at Poughkeepsie and Vestal.
On November 2, general manager James E. Swaine, Jr.,
announced a contract for the construction of the division’s
new headquarters building in Dayton, N.J. Construction
of the 25,000 square foot facility began immediately,
with completion scheduled for September 1962. More than
100 people were assigned to the new
facility, most of whom were relocated from the division’s
headquarters in New York City.
In 1961 the Supplies Division manufactured punched
cards, magnetic tapes and other supplies used with IBM
accounting machines and DP systems. It operated card
plants in Campbell, Concord, Dayton, Greencastle, Sherman
and Washington, as well as a Magnetic Tape Center in
Minneapolis, and laboratories in Poughkeepsie and Vestal.
Card manufacturing at Endicott was phased out in April,
five months ahead of schedule. (IBM had begun manufacturing
punched cards in Endicott in 1923.) According to its
general manager at the start of 1962, the Supplies Division
had just completed the greatest year in its history.
1962
Early in the year, IBM received an award to produce
millions of punched card sets for the new Department
of Defense MILSTRIP system, a unified standard requisitioning
system for nearly three million items from shoelaces
to missile parts.
The division’s Washington plant celebrated its
20th year of producing U.S. Savings Bonds.
In May, the division reported that its Greencastle
plant manufactured and shipped more products per
day than any other IBM plant. An average of more than
two million pounds of products were shipped to customers
across the United States, and billings and shipments
numbered well into the hundreds each day.
On July 31, in the midst of preparations for the opening
the next day of the Eastern Tape Center in Poughkeepsie,
SD’s new facility shipped its first order -- to
an IBM customer in Virginia who needed magnetic tape
within 24 hours to complete inventory operations on
an IBM
1401 data processing system. Two days later, IBM
formally announced that the Supplies Division had established
a magnetic tape testing center in Poughkeepsie that
would serve data processing systems users in 19 eastern
states.
SD said in October that its Product Development Laboratory
had developed and would manufacture the ribbon for the
IBM 1443 printer that would be used with the new IBM
1440 data processing system.
During the year, SD moved into its new headquarters
in Dayton.
1963
By 1963, the Supplies Division’s responsibilities
were redefined as “providing punched cards, magnetic
tapes, ribbons and other supplies for use with data
processing machines.”
In February, ribbon manufacturing swung into full-time
production at the SD plant in Dayton. (The lifetime
of the IBM 1403 ribbon seemed almost ageless. After
a 1403 printer
had printed an average 1.5 million-word volume of the
Encyclopedia Britannica more than a dozen times on one
ribbon, that ribbon would still be going strong.)
On April 29, SD introduced the IBM
Micro-Processing System, the first time the division
manufactured equipment to support the sale of supplies.
On May 21, three new SD products were introduced: nylon
ribbons for the IBM 1403 printer; a new ribbon, 27 yards
long, for the IBM 407 accounting machine; and an endorsing
roll for the IBM 1201 proof enscriber which provided
for approximately 375,000 endorsements.
During the year, two major new paper documents were
announced: data sheets designed for test scoring and
various commercial applications such as order-entry;
and data sheets designed for use with optical scanning
data equipment. Those forms were produced by SD’s
Greencastle plant.
1964
The division’s mission was broadened to include
paper forms and the new line of micro-image equipment
(the
IBM Micro-Processing system). The six card plants
were producing billions of punched cards annually.
In January, supplies marketing responsibility was transferred
back to the Supplies Division from the Data Processing
Division.
On February 3, SD announced a new tape reel with an
aluminum hub.
In May, the White House announced a new $75 Savings
Bond -- which SD’s plant in Washington helped
to design and produce -- bearing the likeness of the
late President John F. Kennedy.
On June 4, Frank H.
McCracken was named general manager of the Supplies
Division, succeeding James E. Swaine, Jr.
In July, a clean room was completed at the division
headquarters annex building where data cells for the
IBM 2321 data
cell drives would be assembled.
In August, SD opened a card manufacturing facility
at the Minneapolis Tape Center for the production of
80-column, general purpose cards.
In September, the Eastern Tape Center in Poughkeepsie
was consolidated with Minneapolis.
In October, the Greencastle plant celebrated its 10th
anniversary.
On December 1, the division announced that IBM had
adopted round corners
as a regular feature on IBM general purpose punched
cards. (Virtually all punched cards had been manufactured
with square corners since 1890. ) On December 4, the
division announced four microfilm
products (copier/reproducer, diazo film copier,
viewer/printer and planetary camera) -- two unique in
industry -- that gave IBM’s Micro-Processing equipment
a new systems capability for automating information
processing.
1965
On March 19, the IBM
Votomatic was added to the division’s portfolio.
Developed by Dr. Joseph P. Harris at the University
of California, the six-pound, briefcase-size device
used the principle of a punched card voting system to
compile the results of opinion polls, market surveys,
tests and other reports.
By August, the division was marketing more than 100
different continuous paper forms.
On October, the Supplies Division introduced a document
processing system that electronically controlled the
size and shape of paper reports as they were printed
by a computer. That same month, division president McCracken
announced a broader product scope and a new mission
for SD: “the development, manufacture and marketing
of products and services pertaining to the entry, storage,
distribution, retrieval and display of information not
computer controlled.” He said the Supplies Division
would perform a records management service -- helping
customers to effectively organize and manage the total
information flow to their operations.
In December, the division announced the future construction
of an 85,000-square-foot tape development and pilot
manufacturing facility in Boulder, Colo., to be completed
in mid-1966.
All told, SD announced 11 new products in 1965.
1966
On January 12, the Supplies Division opened a new education
center in Princeton, N.J., to train sales representatives,
field engineers and customers.
By late-February, the first six Micro-Copier Reproducers
manufactured by SD had been shipped from Vestal and
were installed in customer facilities.
The Supplies Division was renamed the Information Records
Division on March 21, with Frank H. McCracken becoming
IRD’s first president.
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