Design of an experimental multiple instantaneous response file
E. L. Younker, C. H. Heckler, D. P. Masher, J. M. Yarborough · 1964
An experimental model of an electronic reference retrieval file in which all file entries are interrogated simultaneously has been designed and constructed. The experimental model is designed to store and search on a file of indexes to 5,000 documents. A document index consists of a decimal accession number and up to eight English word descriptors that are closely related to the contents of the document. The vocabulary required to describe the documents is held in a machine dictionary that has a design capacity of 3,000 words. In the model delivered to the sponsor, Rome Air Development Center, the storage capacity is only partially used. The specification for the delivered model calls for the storage of approximately 1,100 documents that were selected from the ASTIA (now DDC) Technical Abstract Bulletin and of the vocabulary needed to describe them (about 1,000 words). The document indexes and the dictionary words are stored in wiring patterns associated with arrays of linear ferrite magnetic cores.A search question, consisting of one to eight descriptors in their natural English form, is entered by means of an electric typewriter. During entry of the search question, the dictionary magnetic store is interrogated by the alphabetic code of each search word. If a word is not contained in the dictionary, it is automatically rejected. After all words of the search question have been entered, the document magnetic store is interrogated by the search question in superimposed code form. The comparison between the search word and the document indexes is made for all documents simultaneously and the machine instantaneously determines if any documents in the file include the search question. If there are none, the machine indicates visually that there is no response. If there is at least one, the machine counts the number of responding documents and displays this number. Then it types out the indexes of all responding documents on the same typewriter that was used to ask the question.