Scope and Contents

Original Blue Ribbon copy. DOCUMENT FEEDING MECHANISM

Scope and Contents

Original Blue Ribbon copy. DOCUMENT FEEDING MECHANISM

Scope and Contents

Letter includes 3 pages of hand-drawn sketches by Lindquist, and witnessed and signed by Chief Engineer Robert A. Edberg, and Engineer Tom Jacob. [documents related to No. 1 above]

Scope and Contents

Five typewritten pages, one JVM hand-drawn sketch page, and copy of E. F. Lindquist Letter No. 5 above. [JVM Note: This basic concept eventually led to a more complex U. S. Patent many years later by John V. McMillin: 5,103,490, granted 7 APRIL 1992]

Scope and Contents

Describes the sole U. S. Patent granted at that time (E. F. Lindquist), and a list of nine patents pending, six technical disclosures, and seven Technical Development categories and "know how". Many of the items listed led to U. S. Patents being granted in future years

Scope and Contents

29 claims, 22 sheets of drawings, 26 text pages

Scope and Contents

This 30-page document, plus APPENDICES with drawings, tables, charts, and related information, describes an early use of solid-state technology and related mechanisms to solve a timing issue with the high speed combined OMR/punched-hole reading of IBM 'tab card' documents on specially designed MRC scanners

Scope and Contents

4-page report, plus tables, block-diagram, authored by JVM, and trip report to DI/AN Controls vendor. By the early 1960's, magnetic tape systems were becoming available to replace/supplement the ubiquitous punched-hole IBM tab-cards for storage. Accordingly, MRC began plans to store the scanned OMR sheet output data onto magnetic tape. This brief technical report outlines the requirements, steps, procedures, and includes a JVM Trip Report summarizing several possible vendors to assist MRC in accomplishing this objective. Authored by JVM. In due course, MRC did indeed convert to magnetic tape storage systems, rather than cards

Scope and Contents

Includes 4 hand-drawn sketches, by Lindquist, initialed and dated 27 JUL 1965. His memo copied to John McMillin (Project Engineer), Tom Jacob (MRC engineer), and Pete Wahl (General Manager). A rare document that exhibits Dr. Lindquist's creative mechanical-design abilities and draftsmanship!

Scope and Contents

Yet another example of Dr. Lindquist's passion for clever inventions and being deeply involved in the 'early days' of MRC Engineering development and design of OMR scanners. True, we on the MRC engineering staff sometimes regarded Lin's ideas as a bit on the Rube Goldberg side of the aisle, and as I recall, this was one of them, and we never implemented this particular idea of his, nor did he apply for a patent. However, this original Lindquist paper does describe a basic and fundamental problem - with respect to document registration - in the accurate scanning of position-encoded OMR marks therein, and fortunately, the problem was solved more than a decade later when CCD arrays became commercially available. Refer to McMillin/Schroeder U. S. Patent No. 4,300,123, issued 10 NOV 1981

Scope and Contents

Not everyone, in fact most students, did not enjoy "filling in the answer-bubbles" on the Lindquist Iowa Tests of Basic Skills battery of tests. Apparently, Mr. Spooner sensed this frustration amongst his students, and wrote this witty and humorous poem. Although the enclosed copy is not dates, I believe it began to circulate in the 1960's, and no doubt has withstood the test of time!

Scope and Contents

A 6-page Technical Disclosure, plus 2-page Appendix, and thirteen (13) hand-drawn circuit/logic diagrams. Parity-checking is a paradigm in logic/data-processing circuitry to represent the odd or even count of the eight (8) "0 or 1" data bits, for example, of an 8-bit byte. A ninth bit - the parity bit - is a "1" if the "1" count within the 8-bit byte is 'odd', or is a "0" if the "1" bit count is even. This is known as an "odd" parity-bit generator; an even-bit parity generator would output a "0" bit for this example. This disclosure, authored by JVM, describes a general-case solution for a "2 to N bit-wide" word, employing MRC NOR-OR transistorized logic circuits. Developed in the early 1960's, long before integrated circuits were commonly available, this logic would fit in a tiny corner of an IC chip today

Scope and Contents

Dr. Lindquist was approached by this organization earlier in 1961 about the feasibility of MRC designing and building a special OMR-card scoring machine for the League's various tests administered to nursing students. As Technical Project Manager of the MRC Engineering Division, I was assigned the task of drafting a Technical Proposal for their consideration. This 20-page report, plus Appendix, describes the proposed features and performance of such a system. For reasons long forgotten the project never reached fruition, but this document illustrates Dr. Lindquist's desire to 'take on' any reasonable customer for fame and gain! The NLN organization thrives yet today; see URL: http://www.nln.org/

Scope and Contents This folder presents my "MRC Discrimination System for Mark-Sense Scanning, a Technical Disclosure", and eventually leading to two (2) U. S. Patents, granted more than three years after the initial filing date of 6 APRIL 1966, in that the first patent was granted 23 DEC 1969, and the second one granted on 11 AUG 1970. These were the first two of my 14 patents granted during my career with MRC, WLC, and NCS from 1956 to 1996. Prior to this invention, the original 1950's circa MRC Scoring machines had certain weaknesses or limitations in the vacuum-tube design of that era to accurately discriminate between a student's intended, darker mark, and an overly smudgy erasure, leading to scoring errors; or failing to detect an intended 'cheat' double/multiple mark, and giving false credit to the student's answer. This invention, incorporating transistorized circuits and an entirely new approach to the solution, essentially eliminated this difficulty, and greatly increased the accuracy (and...

Scope and Contents This 11-page Technical Disclosure is 'classic Lindquistian' in terms of elaborate mechanical components, such as springs, rollers, plates, plastic sheets, foam rubber, and related apparatus. The Disclosure includes four original 11" x 17" Figures/Drawings, signed by RAE (Robert A. Edberg, Chief Engineer at MRC), and dated from 28 to 31 JAN 67. The descriptive Figures were probably drafted/drawn by Edberg, as they are rather 'too neat' with respect to Lindquist's more informal/cryptic style of sketches normally seen with his Technical Disclosures. My copy of this Lindquist Technical Disclosure contains a cover letter written by Edberg to the MRC Patent Attorney, Mr. Andrew B. Beveridge, dated February 1, 1967, requesting a review of the attached material for patentability (e.g. conduct a prior-art patent search, etc.). Curiously, however, the Edberg letter states that "This will be a personal patent by E. F. Lindquist and consequently you will bill him directly for the work...

Scope and Contents

A Review of the "Intellectual Property" which existed on or before October 16, 1966, and including relevant comments on progress from 24 November 1965 to the current date: Prepared by the MRC PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT GROUP, Engineering Division. Iowa City, Iowa, John V. McMillin, Manager, April 7, 1967. Previous Item in this list of UI Accession documents described the technology and issued U. S. Patent related to the MRC 1501 scanner. However, there is a lot more to the story in relation to MRC (as a not-for-profit entity) attempting to forge a design/manufacturing relationship with a major industrial corporation, LITTON Industries, and the LITTON managers who resigned from LITTON to form a new company, IKM Industries, to carry on the development task with MRC. This review of "Intellectual Property", authored by me, was the first step in preparing for litigation and/or settlement of the MRC financial obligations when the MRC-LITTON-IKM relationships were terminated