STANDARDIZATION OF COMPUTER TECHNOLOGY FACILITIES,

In the past each computer manufacturing organization has had its own system of specifications, and the result has been a great variation in parameters of such computer equipment as analog and digital processors, magnetic tape, drum, and core memories, IO units and peripheral equipment such as tabulators, punchcard verifiers, sorters, and collaters. The author, as chief specialist or the standards committee, lists various reasons for the desirability of standardizing basic characteristics to make computer equipment compatible and interchangeable and presents a program for realizing this goal in the next two years. He expects that this action will also promote the establishment of procedures, technical requirements, and methods for testing computers that will result in their increased speed, capacity, and reliability, as well as in compatibility of instruction reportoires and software, development of modern IO units, and centralization and specialization of manufacturing facilities for computers and their components.