1. Phototubes (electronic tubes sensitive to the brightness of light), which could sense the difference between black and white (these already exist).
2. A memory of the shapes of 52 letters, 10 digits, and punctuation marks. Fine distinctions would be required of this memory in some cases—like the difference between the numeral 5 and the capital letter S.
3. A control that would cause the machine to tune itself, so that a good matching between the marks it observed and the shapes it remembered would be reached.
4. A triggering control so that, when the machine had reached good enough matching between its observations and its memory, the machine would proceed to identify the marks, read them, and transfer them.
5. An electric typewriter, which would respond to the transferred instructions. (This also already exists.)
This machine is perhaps not so farfetched as it might seem. During World War II, gun-aiming equipment using the new technique radar reached a high stage of development. Many shots that disabled and sank enemy ships were fired in total darkness by radar-controlled guns. On the glowing screen in the control room, there were two spots, one that marked the target and one that reported the point at which the gun was aimed. These two spots could be brought almost automatically into agreement. In the same way, a report from a phototube telling the shape of an observed mark and a report from the memory of the machine telling the shape of a similar mark could be compared by the machine for likeness and, if judged enough alike, could be approved as identical.
Even the phrase “enough alike” can be applied by a machine. During World War II, tremendous advances were made in machinery for deciphering enemy messages. Machines observed various features and patterns in enemy messages, swiftly counted the frequency of these features, and carried out statistical tests. Then the machines selected those few cases in which the patterns showed meaning instead of randomness.
A machine like the automatic typist, if made flexible enough, would be, of course, extremely useful. A great load of dull office work is now being thrown on clerks whose task is to translate from writing and typing into languages that machines can read, such as punch cards. At the present time, if punch-card machines are widely used in a big company, the company must employ large numbers of girls whose sole duty is to read papers and punch up cards. A still bigger chore is the work of typists in all kinds of businesses whose main duty is to read handwriting, etc., and then copy the words on a typewriter.
Each square in the grill
is watched by a phototube.