unit record

English

Typical 80-column IBM punched card of the mid-20th century; the most prominent unit record of the time

Punched cards in U.S. Archives unit record warehouses numbered in their billions about 1959. This archive could fit into a flash drive of 2012

The IBM 96-hole punched card from 1969 was less than half as large as the 80-column unit record, and could store 20% more data, but by then unit record technologies were approaching obsolescence in most countries.

Unit record technology required advanced and demanding mechanical and manual technology in great variety; this sorter read 80-column cards from the hopper on the right, and stacked them in proper sequence into the 13 stackers on the left

Noun

unit record (plural unit records)

1. (computing) A single unit of input or output, as a punch card or line of printout.
   • 1918 Elliott-Fisher Way Bookkeeping by Machinery. A Text Book for the Guidance of the Novice or Expert.
     Elliott-Fisher Company, Harrisburg, Pa. Revised 1918 p.30

     Sometimes, but not often, the posting medium is a bound sales book, a bound cash book, or bound journal of merchandise credits. In modern institutions Loose Leaf units are generally used, because they are easily handled and readily classified. Loose Leaf units for each transaction are more adaptable as posting mediums than bound book or continuous Loose Leaf records; they are more easily sorted, classified and arranged to suit the requirements of modern ledger posting. Unit records can be readily sorted alphabetically by customers' names, territorially, numerically, by salesman, by goods, by departments, or by branches, depending upon the nature of the business and the particular way the ledger accounts are classified. A total of items to be posted (predetermined total) to the Ledger is usually provided by the Auditing Department. With unit records it is easy to get such a predetermined total. This is further explained elsewhere under "Control."

   • 1968 Donald D. Curry. "New Unit Record Concepts Viewed for ADP Applications". Army Research And Development Newsmagazine October1968. p.28

     Unit Records maintenance problems in the harsh environmental conditions to which punched paper card systems are subjected in Southeast Asia might be alleviated greatly by a new concept developed by the U.S.Army Electronics Command.

   • 1987 Howard Fosdick: VM/CMS Handbook for Programmers, Users, and Managers Page 114 Pub. Hayden Books

     Card readers, card punches, and printers are unit record devices. They must be dedicated solely to a particular program for the duration of that program's execution. Otherwise, input to (and output from) different programs would be interspersed. These dedicated devices render a multi-user computer system slow and inefficient because programs must wait for access to devices they require.

Adjective

unit record (not comparable)

1. (computing) relating to unit record devices, processes, or media

References

• “unit record”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
• Unit record equipment on Wikipedia.Wikipedia