White Paper on Data Entry / Typing Computer - Vrindawan Computer Institute

White Paper on Data Entry / Typing Computer

COURTESY :- vrindawan.in

Wikipedia

Data entry is the process of digitizing data by entering it into a computer system for organization and management purposes. It is a person-based process and is “one of the important basic tasks needed when no machine-readable version of the information is readily available for planned computer-based analysis or processing.

Sometimes what is needed is “information about information (that) can be greater than the value of the information itself. It can also involve filling in required information which is then “data-entered” from what was written on the research document, such as the growth in available items in a category. This is a higher level of abstraction than metadata, “information about data. Common errors in data entry include transposition errors, misclassified data, duplicate data, and omitted data, which are similar to bookkeeping errors.

Data entry is often done with a keyboard and at times also using a mouse, although a manually-fed scanner may be involved.

Historically, devices lacking any pre-processing capabilities were used.

Data entry using keypunches was related to the concept of batch processing – there was no immediate feedback.

Computer keyboards and online data-entry provide the ability to give feedback to the data entry clerk doing the work.

The addition of numeric keypads to computer keyboards introduced quicker and often also less error-prone entry of numeric data.

The use of a computer mouse, typically on a personal computer, opened up another option for doing data entry.

Touch screens introduced even more options, including the ability to stand and do data entry, especially given “a proper height of work surface when performing data entry.

Although most data entered into a computer are stored in a database, a significant amount is stored in a spreadsheet. The use of spreadsheets instead of databases for data entry can be traced to the 1979 introduction of Visicalc, and what some consider the wrong place for storing computational data continues.

Format control and specialized data validation are reasons that have been cited for using database-oriented data entry software.

The search for assurance about the accuracy of the data entry process predates computer keyboards and online data entry. IBM even went beyond their 056 Card Verifier and developed their quieter IBM 059 model.

Modern techniques go beyond mere range checks, especially when the new data can be evaluated using probability about an event.

In one study, a medical school tested its second year students and found their data entry skills – needed if they are to do small-scale unfunded research as part of their training – were below what the school considered acceptable, creating potential barriers.

A typewriter is a mechanical or electro mechanical machine for typing characters. Typically, a typewriter has an array of keys, and each one causes a different single character to be produced on paper by striking an inked ribbon selectively against the paper with a type element. At the end of the nineteenth century, the term ‘typewriter’ was also applied to a person who used such a device.

The first commercial typewriters were introduced in 1874, but did not become common in offices until after the mid-1880s. The typewriter quickly became an indispensable tool for practically all writing other than personal handwritten correspondence. It was widely used by professional writers, in offices, business correspondence in private homes, and by students preparing written assignments.

Typewriters were a standard fixture in most offices up to the 1980s. Thereafter, they began to be largely supplanted by personal computers running word processing software. Nevertheless, typewriters remain common in some parts of the world. In many Indian cities and towns, for example, typewriters are still used, especially in roadside and legal offices due to a lack of continuous, reliable electricity.

The QWERTY keyboard layout, developed for typewriters in the 1870s, remains the standard for computer keyboards. The origins of this layout remain in dispute.

Notable typewriter manufacturers included E. Remington and Sons, IBM, Godrej, Imperial Typewriter Company, Oliver Typewriter Company, Olivetti, Royal Typewriter Company, Smith Corona, Underwood Typewriter Company, Facit, Adler, and Olympia-Werke.

Although many modern typewriters have one of several similar designs, their invention was incremental, developed by numerous inventors working independently or in competition with each other over a series of decades. As with the automobile, telephone, and telegraph, a number of people contributed insights and inventions that eventually resulted in ever more commercially successful instruments. Historians have estimated that some form of typewriter was invented 52 times as thinkers tried to come up with a workable design.

Some early typing instruments include:

In 1575, an Italian printmaker, Francesco Rampazetto, invented the scrittura tattile, a machine to impress letters in papers.
In 1714, Henry Mill obtained a patent in Britain for a machine that, from the patent, appears to have been similar to a typewriter. The patent shows that this machine was actually created: “[he] hath by his great study and paines & expence invented and brought to perfection an artificial machine or method for impressing or transcribing of letters, one after another, as in writing, whereby all writing whatsoever may be engrossed in paper or parchment so neat and exact as not to be distinguished from print; that the said machine or method may be of great use in settlements and public records, the impression being deeper and more lasting than any other writing, and not to be erased or counterfeited without manifest discovery.
In 1802, Italian Agostino Fantoni developed a particular typewriter to enable his blind sister to write.
Between 1801 and 1808, Italian Pellegrino Turri invented a typewriter for his blind friend Countess Carolina Fantoni da Fivizzano.
In 1823, Italian Pietro Conti da Cilavegna invented a new model of typewriter, the tachigrafo, also known as tachitipo.
In 1829, American William Austin Burt patented a machine called the “Typographer” which, in common with many other early machines, is listed as the “first typewriter”. The London Science Museum describes it merely as “the first writing mechanism whose invention was documented”, but even that claim may be excessive, since Turri’s invention pre-dates it.

By the mid-19th century, the increasing pace of business communication had created a need for mechanization of the writing process. Stenographers and telegraphers could take down information at rates up to 130 words per minute, whereas a writer with a pen was limited to a maximum of 30 words per minute (the 1853 speed record).

From 1829 to 1870, many printing or typing machines were patented by inventors in Europe and America, but none went into commercial production.

American Charles Thurber developed multiple patents, of which his first in 1843 was developed as an aid to the blind, such as the 1845 Chirographer.
In 1855, the Italian Giuseppe Ravizza created a prototype typewriter called Cembalo scrivano o macchina da scrivere a tasti (“Scribe harpsichord, or machine for writing with keys”). It was an advanced machine that let the user see the writing as it was typed.
In 1861, Father Francisco João de Azevedo, a Brazilian priest, made his own typewriter with basic materials and tools, such as wood and knives. In that same year the Brazilian emperor D. Pedro II, presented a gold medal to Father Azevedo for this invention. Many Brazilian people as well as the Brazilian federal government recognize Fr. Azevedo as the inventor of the typewriter, a claim that has been the subject of some controversy.
In 1865, John Jonathon Pratt, of Centre, Alabama (US), built a machine called the Pterotype which appeared in an 1867 Scientific American article and inspired other inventors.
Between 1864 and 1867, Peter Mitterhofer [de], a carpenter from South Tyrol (then part of Austria) developed several models and a fully functioning prototype typewriter in 1867.
1884 – Hammond “Ideal” typewriter with case, by Hammond Typewriter Company Limited, United States, Despite an unusual, curved keyboard (see picture in citation), the Hammond became popular due to its superior print quality and an interchangeable typeface. Invented by James Hammond of Boston, Massachusetts in 1880, commercially released in 1884. The type is carried on a pair of interchangeable rotating sectors, one controlled by each half of the keyboard. A small hammer pushes the paper against the ribbon and type sector to print each character. The mechanism was later adapted to give a straight QWERTY keyboard and proportional spacing.
1891 – Fitch typewriter – No.3287, type bar class, on base board, made by the Fitch Typewriter Company (UK) in London. Operators of the early typewriters had to work “blind”, the typed text only emerged after several lines had been completed. The Fitch was one of the first machines to allow prompt correction of mistakes – it was thought to be the 2nd design of machine operating on the visible writing system. On the Fitch typewriter, the type bars were positioned behind the paper and the writing area faced upwards so that the result could be seen instantly. A curved frame kept the emerging paper from obscuring the keyboard, but the Fitch was soon eclipsed by machines in which the paper could be fed more conveniently at the rear.
1893 : This typewriter, patented by Mr J Gardner in 1893, was an attempt to reduce the size and cost of such machines. Although it prints 84 symbols it has but 14 keys and two change-case keys. Several characters are indicated on each key and the character printed is determined by the position of the case keys which control 6 case.
1897 – The “Underwood 1 typewriter, 10″ Pica, No.990” was developed. This was the first typewriter with a typing area fully visible to the typist until a key is struck. These features, copied by all subsequent typewriters, allowed the typist to see and if necessary correct the typing as it proceeded. The mechanism was developed in the US by Franz X. Wagner from about 1892 and taken up, in 1895, by John T. Underwood (1857–1937), a producer of office supplies.

Hansen Writing Ball was the first typewriter manufactured commercially (1870)

In 1865, Rev. Rasmus Malling-Hansen of Denmark invented the Hansen Writing Ball, which went into commercial production in 1870 and was the first commercially sold typewriter. It was a success in Europe and was reported as being used in offices on the European continent as late as 1909. Malling-Hansen used a solenoid escapement to return the carriage on some of his models which makes him a candidate for the title of inventor of the first “electric” typewriter.

The Hansen Writing Ball was produced with only upper-case characters. The Writing Ball was used as a template for inventor Frank Haven Hall to create a derivative that would produce letter prints cheaper and faster.

Malling-Hansen developed his typewriter further through the 1870s and 1880s and made many improvements, but the writing head remained the same. On the first model of the writing ball from 1870, the paper was attached to a cylinder inside a wooden box. In 1874, the cylinder was replaced by a carriage, moving beneath the writing head. Then, in 1875, the well-known “tall model” was patented, which was the first of the writing balls that worked without electricity. Malling-Hansen attended the world exhibitions in Vienna in 1873 and Paris in 1878 and he received the first-prize for his invention at both exhibitions.

The first typewriter to be commercially successful was patented in 1868 by Americans Christopher Latham Sholes, Frank Haven Hall, Carlos Glidden and Samuel W. Soule in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, although Sholes soon disowned the machine and refused to use or even recommend it. The working prototype was made by clock-maker and machinist Matthias Schwalbach. Hall, Glidden and Soule sold their shares in the patent (US 79,265) to Densmore and Sholes, who made an agreement with E. Remington and Sons (then famous as a manufacturer of sewing machines) to commercialize the machine as the Sholes and Glidden Type-Writer. This was the origin of the term typewriter. Remington began production of its first typewriter on March 1, 1873, in Ilion, New York. It had a QWERTY keyboard layout, which, because of the machine’s success, was slowly adopted by other typewriter manufacturers. As with most other early typewriters, because the type bars strike upwards, the typist could not see the characters as they were typed.

The index typewriter came into the market in the early 1880s, the index typewriter uses a pointer or stylus to choose a letter from an index. The pointer is mechanically linked so that the letter chosen could then be printed, most often by the activation of a lever.

The index typewriter was briefly popular in niche markets. Although they were slower than keyboard type machines they were mechanically simpler and lighter, they were therefore marketed as being suitable for travellers, and because they could be produced more cheaply than keyboard machines, as budget machines for users who needed to produce small quantities of typed correspondence. For example, the Simplex Typewriter Company made index typewriters that cost 1/40th the cost of a Remington typewriter.

The index typewriter’s niche appeal however soon disappeared, as on the one hand new keyboard typewriters became lighter and more portable and on the other refurbished second hand machines began to become available. The last widely available western index machine was the Mignon typewriter produced by AEG which was produced until 1934. Considered one of the very best of the index typewriters, part of the Mignon’s popularity was that it featured both interchangeable indexes and type, allowing the use of different fonts and character sets, something very few keyboard machines allowed and only at considerable added cost.

Although pushed out of the market in most of the world by keyboard machines, successful Japanese and Chinese typewriters are of the index type albeit with a very much larger index and number of type elements.

Embossing tape label makers are the most common index typewriters today, and perhaps the most common typewriters of any kind still being manufactured.

The platen was mounted on a carriage that moved horizontally to the left, automatically advancing the typing position, after each character was typed. The carriage-return lever at the far left was then pressed to the right to return the carriage to its starting position and rotating the platen to advance the paper vertically. A small bell was struck a few characters before the right hand margin was reached to warn the operator to complete the word and then use the carriage-return lever.

By about 1910, the “manual” or “mechanical” typewriter had reached a somewhat standardized design. There were minor variations from one manufacturer to another, but most typewriters followed the concept that each key was attached to a type bar that had the corresponding letter molded, in reverse, into its striking head. When a key was struck briskly and firmly, the type bar hit a ribbon (usually made of inked fabric), making a printed mark on the paper wrapped around a cylindrical platen.