An overview of the computer output microfilm field

An overview of the computer output
microfilm field

by DON M. AVEDON*

Scan Graphics Corporation
Stamford, Connecticut

INTRODUCTION taining data, produced by a recorder from

From the earliest times, man has made his mark. At computer generated electrical signals.
first his marks were made with his own fingers on 2. Computer Output Microfilmer: a recorder which
walls of caves. He used a chisel or brush to create
pictures of animals. He developed symbols, alphabet converts data from a computer into human
and languages. lVlan used marks to pass information readable language and records it on microfilm.
from person to person and from generation to gener- 3. Computer Output Microfilming: a method of
ation. Through the ages, man recorded information converting data from a computer into human
readable language onto microfilm.

to be used again and again. He recorded history, This paper will describe COM technology and the

mathematics and law. These things brought order to various types of COM recorders. Some of the uses and

his life. The history of civilization is the history of applications will be explored. A description of the

man's ability to communicate, record and make marks. various recorders and a comparison of the units will

In making marks, there is most always a moving be made. Microfilm origination, dissemination and

object. lVlan used his own fingers. Today most marks retrieval systems will be reviewed. Some COM market

are made by a type slug, a print hammer, a moving forecasts will be looked at and a survey of the field

drum, or some mechanical device. And now man has by the National Microfilm Association will be pre-

electronic digital computers. These machines manipu- sented.

late and generate information at unprecedented speed.

Man's need to make marks has multiplied many times
in the past few decades. lVluch of the drudgery of General

handling information has been relegated to the com- Over the past several years, American industry as
puter. The speed of computers is so great that mechan- well as the scientific community have turned increasing-
ical mark-making devices can no longer keep pace. ly to the use of computers and microfilm as a means of
Devices using a stylus or print hammer will not move controlling what is referred to as the "paperwork
fast enough and require too much maintenance. explosion." Computers and microfilm have been
generally used independently to cope with the same
This is the beginning of our story-a new method problem. Both have been successful, but neither alone
for making marks-COM. has completely solved the problem. The effect of com-

What does COlVI mean?

1. Computer Output Microfilm: microfilm con- bining microfilm and the computer in a system for
information handling may turn out to be more dramatic

* Also Director, National Microfilm Association, Annapolis, than the effect of either alone.
Computer systems of all generations, first, second and
Maryland.
613

From the collection of the Computer History Museum (www.computerhistory.org)

614 Fall Joint Computer Conference, 1969

third, ha ve been plagued by an imbalance of speeds. that is, they are capable of reducing the digital output
The fUIlctions of computer systems namely, input pro- of computers to convenient, usable plots and curves
ce8sing, and outpu t--though intundned a:::: f1.mctions, that are annotated with alphanumeric information.
have been sadly imbalanced in their speed relation- Figures 1 and 2 are typical scientific plots. This was
ships one to the other. The computer itself, or the main the role of the COM until recent years when some of
frame, has seen an ascension of speed and power of the scientific users began using the printing cap.ability
phenomenal proportions from the mid-1950's to the for non-scientific alphanumeric listings.
present. The older vacuum tube equipment could pro-
cess at thousandths of seconds or milliseconds. The ..." \
transistor and solid state technology brought forth
microseconds or a millionth of a second speeds. Finally, ./ ....'.
the third generation in this evolution, the micrologic
of integrated circuits, has caused nanosecond speeds, J
a billionth of a second, to be realized. However, the
input/output twins have seen no similar evolution. -"'1-...... - ...... - ... &.. , .,. It .... _ ••. ""
On the input side the basic medium of data input is
still the EAl\1 card which is over 30 years old. On the _.M. __ ..".:!':'_ ..-.- ........... H ..........,.-....... t •
output side mechanical printing and its hardcopy paper
medium has been the major avenue of getting the .•."1.1.11t . . -•.. . - _.I,I........ ....,•......•.•. t.I.f_.... •........... "1.1,. . . . . .

information to the user. Figure 1-Typical scientific plot.
Although there have been several major efforts to

improve the input/output situation, and especially to
eliminate the output bottleneck, none has succeeded
until now. The Computer Output Microfilmer, or COM
recorder provides the solution to the computer output
problem. A COM recorder has the output equivalent of
as many as 30 impact printers operating simultaneously.
Some COM units have a transfer rate as high as 100,000
characters per second (transfer rate: the speed at
which information can be transferred from magnetic
tape to microfilm).

The COlVI is a device which records computer data on
microfilm in human readable form. It is a recorder
which may be connected directly to the computer for
"on line" operation or to a magnetic tape unit for
"off-line" operation. The magnetic tape unit "reads"
information into the COM from a magnetic tape which
previously has been recorded directly from the com-
puter.

There are three types of COM devices:

Business-alphanumeric printer

Scientific-alphanumeric printer and plotter

Graphic Arts--special quality alphanumeric
printer and plotter

Recording the output of a digital computer directly . . . . .". .,A Wi . . . . . . . . . . 1.. •• , N _ ....
on microfilm is not new. As early as 1955 at least one
COM recorder was in use for this purpose. The early """"II .•" , ........-.......--_.MIIf'f- ..'.0..'_" I.I.....,...•.•...,........,- .......,...I ..........I.I.........,.• ~.
units as well as some of the new units were designed ...... • ...... -t ...... t. • ......, , ............ ..
for scientific work. These recorders are printer-plotters;
Figure 2-Typical scientific plot

From the collection of the Computer History Museum (www.computerhistory.org)

Overview of Computer Output Microfilm Field 615

LOC .TAftJ. LOC .TAftJ. LOC .TAftJ.

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)"igure ;~-l'ypical business information-aiphanumerie:;

These non-scientific (business) applications prompted today do not yield full capacity. The computer systems
the development of special COM devices which are are slowed down by their output devices, the impact
designed for high speed recording of alphanumeric printers, which pr.oduce too much paper. The mountains
computer output. These units record the same type of of printout they produce are smothering the very
information as impact printers only they are much efficiencies for which computers were designed. These
faster and the information is placed on microfilm thousands of computers do not put vital information
instead of paper. Figure 3 shows an example of this into the hands of the right people in the right places
type of information. Thousands of computers in use in time for the right decisions. These new business

From the collection of the Computer History Museum (www.computerhistory.org)

616 Fall Joint Computer Conference, 1969

SALES

600 5.000 l- THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS

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R[(~R[)[[I I'I~I THE 'NF~RMATl·~N INTERNATl~NAL FR80

Figure 4-1'ypical business report.-gt"aphic~

COM recorders can solve this problem. The problem 4. Smaller records storage.
is solved by the following advantages the COM system 5. Reduced cost of supplies and material.
has over the impact printing syste~: 6. Weight of information significantly reduced.
7. Microfilm doesn't have to be decollated, burst
1. Printing at computer tape speeds.
2. Forms printed with data simultaneously. or bound.
3. Retrieval coding placed on records ttS it is
The third type of COM is the graphic arts printelr.
created. This is an electronic composition system. This type

From the collection of the Computer History Museum (www.computerhistory.org)

Overview of Computer Output Mi·crofilm Field 617

of recorder can produce alphanumerics and graphics LOGIC
with graphic arts quality at data processing speeds. AND
CONVERSION
The evolution of the COM is quite interesting, it ELECTRONICS
began with the scientific device being used for plotting
technical data in graphic form. Now it is being used
extensively by business for alphanumerics as a re-
placement for impact printers. I predict that business
management will quickly realize that they too would
have great advantages from the scientific type of
system and have their business information plotted
and 'presented in graphic form instead of as alphanumer-
ics or having a draftsman manually prepare charts from
alphanumeric data. Figure 4 shows a business report
produced by a scientific COM recorder.

Technology CATHODE
RAY
Speed TUBE

The most obvious technological advantage of a COM FIXED DATA
is the speed at which computer information is translaMd
into human readable form on microfilm. It is difficult
to visualize or appreciate this speed. I, therefore,
present these comparisons:

5,000 30 1
electric impact CalVI
typewriterR printers recorder

Looking at it another way:

Characters Lines Lines Pages
per sec. per min. per hr. per hr.

Typewriter 15 7 400 6

Impact Printer 2420 1100 66,000 1031 MICROFILM
1,900,000 30,000 CAMERA
COM recorder 70,000 32,000
FI!?;tJre 5-CI~T ll1ierofilm recording
Cathode ray tube (CRT) systems
Electron beam re,cording (EBR) systems
The Computer Output Microfilmer, as the name
implies, produces computer generated microfilm records The second method of recording directly on micro-
, with no intervening paper copy. This is achieved by film uses an electron beam, see Figure 6. Using the
converting the computer digital signals to voltages stroke method1 much like that of a pencil writing on
which are applied to a cathode ray tube. (Another paper, the electron beam writes a latent image directly
method, electron beam recording, will be described on dry-silver microfilm. The electron beam originates
later.) This conversion process results in the infor- at t.he cathode of the electron gun, located on the top of
mation being displayed on the cathode ray tube screen a sealed housing. Electrostatic plates and electro-
in human understandable form. The microfilm record magnetic yokes, or magnetic lenses, deflect the be3.m
is produced by photographing the information dis- to form characters and position them on the micro·
played on the cathode ray tube. The basic nature of film frame. The housing is similar in principle to a
this process is illustrated in Figure 5.

From the collection of the Computer History Museum (www.computerhistory.org)

618 Fall Joint Computer Conference, 1969

Electron Gun --~ Gage Panel ters are stored in memory. About 16 strokes are used
on an average per character.
..-=~~ Electron 8eQm
Characters can also be created by point plotting:.
Vacuum Control This method is generally used, for special symbols or
Panel typefaces.

To Heat Line generation
Processor
Line generation in scientific COM recorders is done
by the use of a "line" or "vector" generator. This is
known as a vector stroke generator and is capa,ble of
drawing vectors. Line width) vector direction and
intensity levels are all generally programmable.

Figure 6-Electron beam recording on microfilm Forms overlay

cathode ray tube except in place of a phosphor screen Forms overlay features are provided on most units.
it has a small aperture through which the beam passes The forms overlay feature provides the capability of
to write directly on the microfilm. Vacuum pumps superimposing predetermined, fixed forms with the
reduce the air pressure within the housing to a level generated image. Forms are interchangeable by an
low enough to facilitate generation and precise control operator or on some units may be called in by program.
of the beam. Because the beam has practically no These forms may contain maps} company logos, charts
inertia, it can be deflected, or modulated, rapidly and graphs such as the one in Figure 7.
enough to keep pace with the data transfer rates of
the tape drive. Retrieval coding

Character generation COM recorders can generate retrieval codes and
patterns for each or selected frames of information.
There are several methods of creating characters for The following coding systems are usually standard
COM recording. Stromberg-Datagraphix has de- features: Codeline, Image Blip (Image Count) and
veloped a special cathode ray tube called a Charactron®* Miracode. These indexing identifiers are recorded on
Shaped Beam Tube. The Charadtron tube creates an film simultaneously with the data. This feature is the
image by directing an electronic· beam through indi- key to push button easy retrieval of information on
vidual characters cut in a matrix-a thin precise disc microfilm.
with alphanumeric and symbolic characters etched
through it. This matrix is located within the neck of Films
the tube. This method extrudes the beaminto the shape
of the character being printed. This has the effect of There are two recording films in use today in the
stenciling each character onto the tube face. COM field. Almost all CRT systems use Koda~k (Re-
cordak) Dacomatic* film, types 5461 and 7461. The
Another method of creating characters is by the EBR systems use 3M Computer Film~ type 761 (dry-
use of a "stroke" generator. In this type of system a silver). The Dacomatic film is available in thefollowing
spot is deflected to trace the shape of the character sizes:
desired. The voltages necessary .to deflect the spot
are generated by sweep generators~ one for X deflection a. 105mm nonperforated
and one for Y de:flection. Instructions for the charac- b. 35mm with perforations
c. 16mm with perforations
d. 16mm nonperforated

The 3M dry-silver film is available in 16mm nODL-
perforated form.

The 105mm film is used in the business type COM
and the film is cut and used as microfiche. The 35mm

* Charactron is a trademark of Stromberg-Datagraphix, Inc. * Dacomalic is a trademark of East,man Koda.k.

From the collection of the Computer History Museum (www.computerhistory.org)

Overview of Computer Output Microfilm Field 619

....... --.... .................. .,."....A 110......, ••

,

..... "~

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•• ..... '~

•"•9 ..... ~
••• ~
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"'~

"'
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"'-
............ .. ..... '" "I.~... I.IN 10•• I.'. 1.1. '.1. ..HI -" •.•" '.1.
i'..

..... r-"

Figure 7- Forms overlay

film is generally used for scientific work (graphics). The impact printer. The following are some of the organi·
16mm nonperforated film is used for almost all business z,ations using COM's in business applications:
applications. The perforated 16mm film is only used
for special high precision applications. Sears Roebuck & Company
J. C. Penney Company
Users and applications Social Security Administration
Equitable Life Assurance Society
Scientifilc Bureau of the Census
International Harvester Company
A few of the scientific applications are: circuits,
printed wiring board masters, thin film masks, animated Systems servi,ce centers
mov:ies, graphs and charts. See Figures 1, 2 and' 3.
rrhe following are some of the organizations using At the present time there are over 40 systems service
scientific COM recorders: companies operating COM service centers in the follow-
ing cities in the United States:
North American Aviation
NASA California
Collins Radio CanagoPark
Bell Telephone Laboratories Culver City
Lawrence Radiation Laboratories ElSegundo
MIT Lincoln Laboratories Glendale
Los Angeles
Business San Francisco
Stockton
Business applications include all types of listing;
account reports, management reports and anything Colorado
that might have been produced by a computer and Bolder

From the collection of the Computer History Museum (www.computerhistory.org)

620 Fall Joint Computer Conference, 1969 Washington, D. C.
Wisconsin
Denver
Connecticut Brookfield

Hartford COM recorders
Westport
Florida At the writing of this paper the followng companies
Miami were marketing COIH units:
Georgia
Atlanta a. AMETEK/Straza (Scientific)
Illinois b. Beta Instrument (Scientific)
Chicago c. California Computer Products (Scientific)
Indiana d. Canon (Business)
Indianapolis e. Computer Micro-Data Systems (Scientific)
Louisiana f. Computer Industries (Scientific & Business)
New Orleans g. Control Data (Scientific)
Maryland h. Eastman Kodak (Business)
Baltimore 1. Information International (Scientific)
College Park j. 3M (Business)
Massachusetts k. RCA (Graphic Arts)
Boston 1. Scan Graphics (Scientific)
Springfield m. Singer-Link (Scientific)
Wilmington n. Stromberg-Datagraphix (Scientific & Business)
Michigan
Dearborn Total COM systems
Detroit
Missouri As can be seen in Figure 8 there is very little difference
St. Louis
New Jersey between photographing aCRT or a paper document.
Cherry Hill
Dayton In selecting the film for recording from a CRT it
New York should be matched to the phosphor of the tube in
Binghamton sensitivity. The polarity of the image on a CRT is
Buffalo negative (light lines on a dark background) and on
New York City paper it is usually positive. Therefore, with normal
Rochester film processing the image of the CRT will be reversed
Spring Valley and appear on film as a positive and a microfilm of a
White Plains positive paper document will appear as a negative.
North Carolina Since most users of microfilm prefer to use negative
Winston-Salem images in readers and for making hardcopy it is neces-
sary to obtain a negative image of the COM film, this
Oh~'o is done one of two ways. At the time of processing the
recording film is flashed and developed in a special
Columbus movie processor which provides a negative image on
Cleveland film from the negative CRT image. The second method
Dayton of obtaining negative film images is to make a second,
Penn$Ylvania generation duplicate on Kalvar or silver film which
Philadelphia will reverse the polarity again and therefore from a
Pittsburgh negative CRT image we get, with normal processing,
Texas a positive first generation recording film and then a
Austin negative second generation duplicate.
Dallas
Houston Figure 9 depicts the various systems used for COM
Utah operations. In scientific applications the film is most
Salt Lake City often put in aperture cards or used as short st.rips or on
Virginia reels. In most business applications the film is used i~.
Arlington roll from in cartridges. There are a few systems where

From the collection of the Computer History Museum (www.computerhistory.org)

Overview of Computer Output Microfilm Field 621

the film is cut and pasted up to make a master micro- ~ ~i I ....,," C~.",~(]i::\.
fiche. A recent development, the 105mm film head for ~
a COM provides microfiche directly and therefore Prepared l ...Prepare<!
eliminates much of the manual labor in producing 1 "",~
microfiche. In most business applications film duplicates
are required to disseminate the information to many ~ ;:-"'. ~ ~--~.~3~1~....~-~-~ L.J[IJ5~~~ Camera
users. In all systems, readers, reader-printers, retrieval e-.-: ----i- f:~:=--~ :~:~.~:~t~r J, ~~lioIProcessol COM Recorder
devices and enlarger-printers are needed by the end
users of microfilm. Additional information on these ..
items can be obtained from the National Microfilm
Association's "Guide to Microreproduction Equip- '.'=' Prepara"on
ment" now in its fourth edition.
~~r~nterRoll Aperture ~.
There are six generally used methods of making •
copies of computer generated reports. Figure 10 pro-
vides a cost comparison of a 100 page report. As can :~I~RO~li.S'''''~.~;Jf~re ~
be seen on the graph, distribution of microfilm dupli- !• F,che
cates is the lowest cost method at any quantity of b6 Cl"·· Card. to-FIche
copies.
n1 .... Pllnter
The COM market & NMA survey
Cartlldges ijI
At the end of 1968 there were about 300 COM
~• ~;r~~~~ ~~
PAPER ".. Mleloflchc
DOCUMENT Duplrcate Dupltcates
Cards

t I ca~

9

Reader Reader· Enlarger
Punter Pun lei

Figure 9-:\ltcrographlC infor n:-ttiun sy;;tel:l"

CATHODE recorders in use. Of this number about 60 units were
RAY TUBE being operated by systems service companies.

IMAGE There have been many forecasts made of the COM
field with as many conclusions as studies. Figure 11
Figure S-Microtilmmg systeJ:ls shows the range of these forecasts, which is that by
1975 there will be between six and 12,000 recorders in
operation. The cost of a COM is $60,000 to $300,000
with the average being about $100,000. This average
rental is in the order of $40,000 per year.

In the Spring of this year the National Microfilm
Association made a survey of all its over 3,000 members.
with regard to the use of Computer Output Microfilm.
The following are some of the statistics obtained and
my comments:

1. Questionnaires were returned by 24 percent of
those queried.

Comment: 24 percent is considered an excellent
return on a direct mail survey. NMA

From the collection of the Computer History Museum (www.computerhistory.org)

622 Fall Joint Computer Conference, 1969

$3.50 Duplication U.lng Xarox 2<400-IV HAVE NOT BEEN INCLUDED IN ANY
3.00 (Poper Cople.) OF THE FOLLOWING STATISTICS.

2.50 • • • • • • • • • • • • • 11 • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 2. Questionnaires were returned by 74 organi-
zations indicating they now have a COM re:-
] Microfilming CompuMr Poper Prlnt-<>ut corder(s), 29 were scientific and 59 business unitE!.
(Microfilm Cople.)
] Comment: 33 percent of COM's are scientific
~ 2.00 COM Recorder To Enlarger To Offset Duplication type today 67 percent of COlvl's are
(Paper Cople.) business type today
&
2- 3. 105 organizations indicated they would obtain
their first COM in the next two years. 28 organil-
I zations indicated they would obtain an ad-
ditional COM in the next two years and 55
§ 1.50 organizations indicated the use a C01VI was
under study.
i
~

1.00

.50 Comment: By the end of 1970 there will proba-
bly be more than 1,000 COM'/3 in use.
COM Recorder
4. Positive versus negative original recording film:
-.T.o..~.~..~."..\.~.f..:..r.r.l..n.t.e..r......................................... 56 using positive (normal processing)
29 using negative (flash reversal proeessin!~)
10 20 30 «l 50 100 200 300 400 SOD 1000 A few organizations use both positive and nega-
NUMBER OF DISTRIBUTION POINTS tive

• Cost of ...lcrofIl... retrlewl equipment NOT Included Comment: Even though it requires spechtl
processing equipment to obtain a
PiglJre IO-Comparative cost.s of creating copies ot negative image on the original film
comput.er generated' output it is being done, there must be a
need.
Number of
Units 5. The following film processors are being used in
COM systems:
n - .....
Fulton 10 users
20
Kodak 18 users
19
18 Remington Unipro 3 users
17
16 Stromberg 6 users

15
14
13
12
II
10

Other 35 users

6. The following is the quantity of original re-
cording film being used per month by 48 respond
ents who gave figures:

16mm perforated 80,000 feet

YEAR 16mm nonperforated 852,000 feet

Fil!ure Il-CO:\j rf'corder unit placement foreea~t 35rnm perforated 6'2,000 feet

members are interested in the COM 35mm nonperforated 3] ,000 feet
field.
NOTE: SYSTEMS SERVICE COMPANIES 105mm nonperforated 6,000 feet

Comment: The following is an estimate of
the quantity of recording film 2~1l
COM's are currently using per
month.

lomm perforated 400,000 feet

From the collection of the Computer History Museum (www.computerhistory.org)

Overview of Computer Output Microfilm Field 623

16mm nonperforated 4,200,000 feet Miracode*-IO users
35mm perforated 300,000 feet ImageBlip (Image Count)-24 users
35mm nonperforated 150,000 feet Code Line-7 users
Flash-9 users
7. 57 of the 74 users duplicate their film. Other-12 users

23 Diazo Comment: Most COM systems are now using
29 Kalvar the Image Blip (Image Count)
22 Silver system of retrieval.

Some used more than one process. 11. Regarding a question on the use of hardcopy
the following responses were received:
Comment: Convenience and turnaround time
are most important. Never used-5 users
Seldom used-20 users
8. Duplicating film being used per month by 40 Frequently used-34 users
COM systems reporting: Always used-6 users

16mm-3,800,000 feet Comment: Hardcopy is required, but on a
35mm-35,000 feet selected basis.
105 x 148mm-34,000 fiche
3-1/4" x 7-3/8"-270,000 fiche 12. For 35 respondents, 844,000 pages of hardcop~'
6" x 8"-34,000 fiche are produced each month.
Aperture cards-367,000 cards
Comment: The average COM. system pro-
Comment: The following is an estimate of the duces 24,000 pages of hardcopy per
quantity of duplicating film being month.
used per month by all COM
systems: Standards

16mm-22,800,000 feet In February of 1968 the National Microfi'm Asso-
3.5mm-200,OOO feet ciation (NMA) established a committee to investigate
Aperture ca.rds-2,200,OOO cards and recommend standards for microfilm produced by
Microfiche (various sizes)-2,OOO,OOO fiche COM recorders. This committee has members from
most of the C01\.1 manufacturers, several COM systems
9. Microforms being used in COM systems re- service companies and many users in government and
porting: industry. There are three sub-committees each with a
rnlssion as follows:
Roll Film (including cartridges)-56 users
Microfiche-21 users Format. Quality and Glossary.
Jackets-13 users
Aperture cards-13 users The National Microfilm Association is attempting to
coordinate the activities of this new microfilm appli-
Comment: The following are the percentages cation by considering standards, reporting of mauy
of COM systems using each micro- specific applications in its Journal and having COM
form: exhibits at its annual convention.

Roll film (including cartridges)-55 percent For additional information on the CO:vI field, write
Microfiche-21 percent to the National Microfilm Association, P.O. Box 386,
Jackets-12 percent 250 Prince George Street. Annapolis, Maryland 21404,
Aperture cards-12 percent
* Miracode is 1:1 Lrademark of Eastman Kodak.
10. For those using roll film and cartridges the
following indexing systems are in use:

From the collection of the Computer History Museum (www.computerhistory.org)

From the collection of the Computer History Museum (www.computerhistory.org)