What kind of printer is shown in the opening title sequence for the movie Desk Set?

Question

The movie Desk Set opens (see here for a clip) with a close-up of a computer printer which is pre-loaded with paper containing the film's opening credits. While the printer doesn't appear to actually printing anything, the print mechanism is visible at the bottom and appears to be attempting to print (my guess would be that it was fed data to print in order to delay the paper advance). The type bars look similar to those on an adding machine, and they move by a comparable amount. Would this have been a numeric-only printer that was designed for filling out pre-printed forms, or would the bars have been long enough to output 47 symbols, but with the ones near the bottom of the bars being much slower to print than numbers which were near the top, or what?

Answer 1

You mean this one?

(taken from this sequence on Youtube)

Well, it isn't 'a printer', but rather the 'computer', at least as far as it goes for that setup :))

It's an IBM 403 Accounting Machine, a mechanical tabulating machine.

As so often the Columbia University pages offer more details.

---

A quite successful device, available since 1949. It had the great advantage that a very simple (plugboard) program was all to be doneto print out whatever the director needed. All they had to do is punch it first on one of the IBM 026 keypunches as well visible in this opening still:

A master piece of lighting and field of depth lenses. Lovely how this captures the Zeitgeist.

The title text is of course pre-printed ... err VFX. But you got to love that they kept the print bars moving, even in different sequences for each page.

Unusual for a movie setup, it does not only show an impressive lineup, but also related machines that would be found in an up to date accounting office in the mid to late 1950s. They seem to have had good consulting and an even better budget.

Here an annotated version (mostly clockwise starting at the 403):

• IBM 403 Accouting Machine

  The hero of our story :))

• IBM 026 Keypunch

  Three of them in a row, but only two keyboards shown, the middle one also missing a cover piece. The fourth standing solitaire. Looking close shows that it's operating, duplicating cards. Quite an effort to get that done, they must have had an IBM field engineer at site.

• IBM 083 Sorter

  Without the often seen chute (operation seen here).

• IBM 523 Gang Summary Punch

  I'm not entirely sure, as it could as well be a 533 or 537 Card Read Punch as delivered with an IBM 650 Magnetic Drum Data-Processing Machine, or an IBM 535 delivered with the IBM 608 Transistor Calculator. They all look very similar. Since the remaining setup is quite accounting centred, I'd tend toward a 523.

• IBM 726 Magnetic Tape Reader/Recorder

  These are 4 units, the fourth being turned by 90 degree to make it look better.

  While not the very first tape drive (Remington Rand did beat IBM with the UNISERVO for the UNIVAC by almost a year), it was IBM that first used coated plastic based tapes (UNISERVOs used thin metal tapes, much like wire recorders). I would believe that not the machine or it's speed, but the tape was the real reason why the 701 and thus IBM became a success. It was the perfect step up from card processing as its developer, Byron Phelps, recalled, "We had tried more dense paper cards for data storage, but the improvement was only a few times better. Punched paper tape offered no great advantage either. Magnetic tape had just come into its own in audio and offered the most promise".

• IBM 702 or 705 Operator's Console

  Hard to tell. If it's a 705, then it's an early model due the way the IBM tag extends over the top rim. It's kind an outlier here, as there is no IBM 702/705 Data Processing System anywhere to be seen, but it still fits the over all theme of accounting.

  The 726 tapes do fit the picture, as they were, unlike often noted, as well used with the 702/705, albeit in a different format. While the 701 and follow ups, being computers, wrote word data, the 702/704/7080, being accounting machines, wrote character data.

• IBM 727 Magnetic Tape Unit

  Better Picture (click to enlarge). Note the controls bellow the reels as all later units had them always on top. These tapes were used with IBM 701/2/4/5 computers but as well with a stand-alone tape-to-printer (IBM 757), tape-to-card (IBM 758) or card-to-tape (IBM 759) setup. All of them usually to be found in a 704 environment, linking the computer tape based in/output to existing accounting machinery.

  The boxes beside the tapes are not the IBM 752 or 753 tape control units used with 702/701 computers (704 had an integrated tape controller), so I suspect them being 757, 758 or 759 controllers - which again would fit the accounting setup. Sorry, no pictures so far. With their blue colour scheme and square design, they do fit the brand new design introduced with the IBM 608, not long before the film was made. The design that made IBM's nick name Big Blue.

This leaves three mystery devices:

• Lower left, only partially visible:

  Might be another accounting machine.

• Middle, between the 403 and the 726:

  Really, no idea. there are many boxes like that It could be anything from a some interpreter to a 650 box (unlikely)

• Lower right:

  This might be some 632/633 Electronic Typing Calculator configuration. It's clearly a 614 typewriter, but I can't identify the box beside it. Most known is the 632, composed from a fridge sized 630 Arithmetic Unit, the 614 typewriter and a 638 Companion Keyboard, but there were countless addons, from card readers to printing and non printing punches, tape readers and tape punches, all in multiple versions.

  Best think of it as a Friden Flexowriter 2201 on Steroids.

So yes, an impressive accounting office setup.