Scope and Contents The University of Iowa called upon MRC from time to time for assistance or volunteers in various matters. From making printed-circuit cards for James Van Allen's space probes, to high-speed centrifugal air-drills for the College of Dentistry, to double-barreled hypodermic needles for the Medical College, to asking me to make presentations to the Engineering College, or volunteering as a 'judge' for several U of I Student Engineering Class assignments. In the latter case, I was asked in April 1971 to serve as one of the four judges for a student course, "Introduction to Engineering". Accordingly, I volunteered for this assignment, and the enclosed package of materials represents my correspondence file to/from several professors at U of I who were involved in the Project, and my background notes for a later session in November 1971 that was triggered by my suggestions to the U of I Engineering faculty from the earlier session. My resume´ (circa 1970s) is also included on the JVM...

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The Rev. B/7/1/71 63-page manual, S/N#139, plus Appendices, prepared by the Iowa City, IA Engineering Department, JVM Mgr., covers the Model W-400/D Mark-Sense (OMR) Reader interfaced to a Model HP-2116B Hewlett-Packard Computer. Appendix A, WLC STANDARD ALPHA MS-GRID Specs, contains 6 pages, Appendix B, SYSTEM REFERENCE MANUAL for W-400/D DIAGNOSTICS, contains 34-pages, and Appendix C, CARD STOCK, INK, and PRINTING SPECIFICATIONS for the W-400D OMR Reader, contains 23 pages. Numerous diagrams, tables, & drawings are also included in this 'groundbreaking product' of its day. An Original Copy is provided

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This 5-page document, plus a 6-page Appendix, with four nice photos of the product, is related to the above item

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The enclosed MS word file, 2-pages, with photos, 1971_07_15_MRC sells two W301 Scanners to ETS_ORG, shows a reproduction-clip of an ETS publication, The Examiner, Vol. 1, No. 2, dated July 15, 1971, featuring an article titled, "New scanner promises wonders". This article discusses the arrival later in the year of a new MRC Scanning system, and the new features it will offer, as it replaces the SCRIBE scanning system used for years by ETS (Educational Testing Service). ETS, administrator and processor of the College Board Exam, was regarded by Dr. E. F. Lindquist as a competitor, and he vowed he would never sell a scanner to his rival. However, after the sale of MRC to WLC, the attitude about marketing and selling proprietary MRC Optical Mark Readers changed under the new WLC management, and ETS purchased two MRC systems. Refer to the companion item, 1971_1973_ETS Purchase of two W301 Scan Systems, cited earlier for complete details

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Revision E, released 12/15/71 by JVM, Product Development Mgr., for Transport Model 6002 and 6042. This Original Indexed Copy, S/N#26, contains 12 major sections covering several hundred pages, and numerous drawings and sketches. Integrated circuits were employed in the logic design, and the reading head design was awarded a U. S. Patent to McMillin & Miller

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This is a comprehensive Users' Guide Book written by JVM. This Original Copy is Serial #125, originally owned by co-worker Robert J. Roelf. This 8.5" x 11.0" typewritten manual is about 1.5" thick, and the Table of Contents contains 15 major indexed sections, and 3 Appendices, followed by a 2-page Introductory Section, and a Specifications Summary of the W-300 Optical Document Scanner. Photos of the product are shown on pages S-10, S-11, & S-11. Several dozen of these high-performance models were built at the MRC Iowa City Facility, and sold in the U. S., and in several other countries

Scope and Contents A brief 3-page document of my hand-printed notes, made in preparation for a presentation to an unknown audience. I was called upon numerous times during my MRC/WLC/NCS career-phases to assist the Hardware Marketing Staff in sales presentations to important prospects, and this may have been such an occasion. On the other hand, all MRC Managers were required to make quarterly (or more frequently, at times) presentations at WLC-review meetings when a cadre of 8 to a dozen, or more, WLC/WEC executives would fly to MRC Iowa City form either NYC and/or Pittsburgh for our 'dog and pony' show; typically a two-day event concluded with a bloated dinner at the Lark or Highlander. I sarcastically nicknamed these charades as the quarterly Tsetse Fly dance, and often re-cycled my 'transparencies' (in the days of overheads; no MS PowerPoint back then!) with only minor changes for the next upcoming Tsetse Fly Dance. It always worked! More often than not, I typically opened my presentations with my...

Scope and Contents As the versatility of WLC/MRC OMR document processing systems (hardware and software) continued to progress, the company was always 'on the lookout' for new applications. One such idea was to be able to process paper-based OMR tests for the very lowest grade levels, e.g., the Metropolitan Readiness Test. The concept was to show the students a set of 3 or 4 pictures on the test sheet, with the instructions to draw a circle around the correct answer-picture, or alternatively, to mark an 'X' through the correct-answer. JVM was assigned the task of investigating the feasibility of processing these new types of OMR tests on MRC scanning hardware, and his 7-page 11/15/1972 MEMO (plus Appendices and Attachments) to Burdette Hansen, MRC General Manager, summarizes the results, conclusions, and recommendations. The spiral-bound 11/16/72 Original Copy of this complete publication (including the 11/15/72 MEMO) illustrates numerous examples of the OMR sheet designs tested, and the statistical...

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As an Electrical Engineering Student at SUI in the 1950's I 'cut my teeth' on a Post Versalog Slide Rule for mathematical calculations, and the use of this essential tool continued during the first decade and longer when I became a full-time Project Engineer at Measurement Research Center in February 1959. Other than using the MRC Frieden Mechanical desk-top calculator for routine 4-function calculations (+, -, x, and divide), plus square-root extractions, the slide rule reigned supreme. Then, the HP-35 hand-held electronic calculator arrived at my desk in 1973! This section of the JVM Archival Media disc portrays photos of the HP-35, and an MS Word file describing its use at MRC. File name: 1972_02_$395 HP-35 Electronic Calculator_ORG.doc

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This 2-page document illustrates an early effort to provide the user with an OCR type of data entry on a standard MRC/WLC OMR Form. Digitek, an MRC hardware competitor of the day, offered a less friendly system for their sheet formats (MRC opinion!), and this was a conceptual approach to offer a competitive approach. The idea was not taken to the marketplace, however, as it was later determined that the marking requirements for users were not "user friendly". JVM Archival Media disc folder with JPEG files: 1973_OMR CharacterRecognitionConcept_JVM

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This Pocket Folder contains three hand-printed sections by JVM

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This is a 27-page Engineering Department report prepared by JVM, and includes several Appendices with price data for HP Model 2100A computers (32K core memory @ $20,000!) and accessories, and competitive data for NCS Model Sentry-70 scanners. Original Copy. The Archival DVD Folder 1973_02_28_WLC 5-Year Lease Purchase PLAN contains several JPEG-Image files, particularly those of HP Price Sheets. Wow!

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Several Original documents are included in this JVM Accession to the U of I

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This 10-page hand-printed document represents my 'talking points/notes' for a presentation to a long-forgotten customer/prospect. Although WLC was a large corporation, and its parent, Westinghouse Electric larger still, we engineers at the MRC Division of WLC in Iowa City were called upon to wear several hats, one of them being rather frequent presentations (assisting the sales staff) to business prospects for OMR hardware. See my 9/25/1972 Presentation for another example from the 1970s. Since I was head of the MRC Engineering Department, I was the one usually called upon to make these presentations. Thus, this document is a typical example which illustrates the topics covered. Presumably, the historical value of these reports is to list and identify specific customers already using our equipment, both in the U. S. and abroad, and furthermore, to identify the current R&D/Engineering activities then underway. [My hand-printing is reasonably legible too, not always the case!]

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The second page of this 2-page flyer gives a brief description of WLC's marketing of the new W300 Scanner

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This was an attempt by JVM to develop a programming technique, CODAR (Column-Oval Dotting, Any Row) for WLC/MRC's use to simplify the otherwise complex Assembly Language programming (of the day!) for each new answer-sheet format/layout. The body of this spiral-bound Original Copy is 29-pages in length, and an additional 24 pages are devoted to application specifics related to each type of OMR document, such as intermixed Code-type sheets, OMR booklets, intermixed booklets, and other ideas related to 'How to Run' CODAR. Sketches and Flow Charts are included. The Archival DVD Folder: 1973_09_19_Programming Techniques_JVM, contains six JPEG-images of the Introductory Section, and a couple of sketches of CODAR layout/formatting sheets

Scope and Contents Copyright 1973 JVM. This 12-page document, drafted by JVM, was part of a large WLC/MRC Iowa City effort during the 1970s to develop 'turn around' documents for the WLC W2300 OMR Scanning system (the scanner portion of the W2300 system was the Patented W300/301/305 OMR Scanner). The basic idea, as shown on the front page of this document, was to use an OMR template sheet to design the layout of the intended test or survey document (without any programming required), then scan this 'master document' on the W301, send the data to the interfaced-HP-2100 Computer, and then on to the IBM-370 mainframe, then print OMR scannable continuous-forms stock on the high-speed mainframe line printers, which in turn, after bursting into separate sheets, could be marked by the respondents and scanned and processed on the W2300 Scanning system; thus a 'turnaround'. This project was related to another effort underway at about the same time, termed SCORE. See folder 1974_01_15_MRC SCORE Patent...

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This spiral-bound Original Copy contains 5-pages in the descriptive Section #1, with the three additional Sections covering various technical details, charts, examples, etc. In essence, this was another attempt by MRC to simplify the creation of highly flexible format answer sheets, wherein the correct-answer keys would be created by the same 'automated software' that would design the templates for the printing process. See the MRC 'SCORE' project for further details

Scope and Contents WLC top management was very keen on having regular reports submitted from the operating departments, especially annual reports that summarized the accomplishments for a given year, and the projected goals and accomplishments for the coming year. This is a JVM example of such a report. This Original Copy of my Report includes a list of the eight sites that were being supported across the U. S. which had WLC hardware installed. The Archival DVD Folder named 1973_WLC ENG Accomplishments_74 OBJ contains a full set of JPEG-Image scans for this Report; 15 files in all. JVM Note: I should inform the reader that, after a series of frustrating delays, we shipped a W301 OMR Sheet Scanner to the University of New South Wales in late 1973, and I departed for Australia in late December 1973 (along with my wife) to head up the installation effort. A competent technician, Larry Miller (with his wife Sandy along) had departed a couple of days, or so, ahead of us. Our shipping airline, 'Flying...