The IBM 519 Document-Originating Machine, introduced in 1946, was the last in a series of unit record machines

Unit record equipment

Before the advent of electronic computers, data processing was performed using electromechanical devices called unit record equipment, electric accounting machines or tabulating machines. Unit record machines were as ubiquitous in industry and government in the first half of the twentieth century...

 designed for automated preparation of punched card

Punched card

A punched card, punch card, IBM card, or Hollerith card is a piece of stiff paper that contains digital information represented by the presence or absence of holes in predefined positions...

s. It could

• reproduce all or parts of the information on a set of cards
• "gangpunch" - copy information from a master card into the following detail cards
• print up to eight digits on the end of a card
• compare two decks of cards
• summary punch information provided by a connected accounting machine
  Tabulating machine
  The tabulating machine was an electrical device designed to assist in summarizing information and, later, accounting. Invented by Herman Hollerith, the machine was developed to help process data for the 1890 U.S. Census...
  
  
• “mark sense
  Mark sense
  Electrographic is a term used for punched card and page scanning technology that allowed cards or pages marked with a pencil to be processed or converted into punched cards. That technology was sold by IBM, its developer, under the term mark sense...
  
  .” - marks made with an electrographic pencil in designated locations on a punched card are sensed and then holes corresponding to those marks punched into the card
• number cards consecutively (an optional feature)

It operated at 100 cards per minute. Operations of the 519 were directed by a removable control panel

Plugboard

A plugboard, or control panel , is an array of jacks, or hubs, into which patch cords can be inserted to complete an electrical circuit. Control panels were used to direct the operation of some unit record equipment...

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The reproducing, gangpunching, summary punching, and comparing features of the IBM 519 are very similar to those of the IBM 513 and IBM 514

IBM 514

The IBM 514 Reproducing Punch was a card punching machine developed by IBM. The 514 was manufactured from 1949 to 1978. The machine could perform these functions:* Reproducing all or part of the data on a deck of punched cards....

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External links

• Columbia University Computing History: IBM Reproducing/Summary Punches.