The processing of information-containing documents

Much recent attention has been paid to the promise that digital computer techniques will simplify, speed up, and cheapen various sorts of large-scale information processing in business and industry. Only a few actual applications of this sort have so far been attempted, probably for two main reasons. First, punched-card machines are already so highly developed that, despite the potentially greater speed of the newer electronic techniques, it is difficult to introduce novel ways of accomplishing what can now be done by standard business machines. Second, and probably more important, appropriate input and output equipment to couple the world of the digital computer to the world of men often does not exist. To use a computer for scientific or engineering calculations, it is sufficient to provide it with input in the form of a device for reading punched cards or tape, and an output in the form of an electric typewriter or a card punch. Most existing computers have terminal equipment no more sophisticated than this. To use such a machine for accounting purposes, however, requires a far more imaginative solution of the input-output problem; a satisfactory solution can be achieved only on the basis of a deep understanding of the nature of the accounting activity that is being mechanized.