In the last 100 years, countless IBMers have contributed to the innovations and milestones that comprise our century of progress. Below are some reflections from the great minds involved in this Icon of Progress.
“Well, if a horse had hit me in the stomach, I couldn’t have felt it more painfully.” (Upon hearing that IBM felt his prototype test scoring machine was incomplete.)
Rey Johnson
Inventor of the IBM 805
“I only thought of it as strictly a lazy teacher’s gimmick. … excitement in the news exaggerated the hope for a product.”
Rey Johnson
Inventor of the IBM 805
“Who wants to make money out of education?” (to IBM salesmen who warned that the 805 would never make money for IBM)
Thomas J. Watson
IBM president
The IBM Watson Laboratory at Columbia University: A History by Jean Ford Brennan
“Finding ways to challenge the minds of the young has always been a goal of Johnson’s. When he was a high school science teacher in Ironwood, Michigan, two of his students actually built the first experimental test scoring machine, working under Johnson’s directions. The two boys had been assigned to Johnson by the court to work out a sentence for stealing a radio from the school. Johnson turned the sentence into a learning experience for the boys”
“Rey Johnson: A Full life, A Fuller Future”, Think magazine
June 1971“Since the IBM Type 805 Test Scoring Machine first hit the market in 1938, fill-in-the-bubble test score sheets and scanners have remained the dominant technologies used in local, state, and national assessments.”
“Beyond the Bubble: Technology and the Future of Student Assessment”, educationsector.org
February 13, 2009