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Box 1

 Container

Staff Only

Contains 66 Results:

56. R. W. George's U. S. Patent on the RASCOL/W301 MRC Scanner, 1972 February 29

 File — Box: 1
Identifier: 1
Dates: 1972 February 29
Found in: University of Iowa Archives / John V. McMillin II Papers / ACCESSION 1

57. Sex bias suit dismissal upheld: an Iowa City PRESS-CITIZEN original newspaper clipping, 1978 April 19

 File — Box: 1
Identifier: 1
Scope and Contents

Related to a lawsuit brought by the City of Iowa City - on behalf of a female job applicant at MRC -against the Measurement Research Center (MRC) division of WLC. The suit was dismissed. Another related clipping about this case - also included in Item No. 55 - is from the Cedar Rapids Gazette newspaper, published a few days later and referring to its own news story where the female applicant's sought position was for a "decollapor" opening. The Gazette follow-up clipping claimed they had checked with MRC and said, "It turns out a decollapor is the operator of a machine that correlates paper. Now is that cleared up?" Well, hardly, they still got it wrong! Decollate: to separate the copies of multiple-copy paper, continuous forms, or computer printout into individual sets or sheets. So, a 'decollator' is the equipment that performs this function, and I suppose a person running this gear could referred to as a decollator operator

Dates: 1978 April 19
Found in: University of Iowa Archives / John V. McMillin II Papers / ACCESSION 1

Project Engineer John V. McMillin was granted U. S. Patent No. 3,566,083 based upon this invention, and at the time when the IBM punched-card 'reigned supreme' in data-processing, the MRC innovation in combined punched-hole/OMR scanning was the 'cutting edge' in accuracy and speed, 1971 February 23

 Item — Box: 1
Identifier: Item 1
Dates: 1971 February 23
Found in: University of Iowa Archives / John V. McMillin II Papers / ACCESSION 1 / 10. Original Folder: "SCAN HEAD SYSTEM for Sensing Marks and/or Punches from Cards: MRC Model 1501 Card/OMR Reader" B.S. & B file 15,318. Contains JVM's original 46-page Technical Disclosure [MRC R/D Dept.], ten technical drawings, Edberg to/from Beveridge Correspondence file (Chief Engineer to MRC Patent Attorney), and related documents

In summary: I believe this is an important historical document in the early history of the WLC acquisition, as it clearly illustrates the shift in strategy from a local non-profit testing organization (e.g., MRC; under the aegis of the University of Iowa) which offered its testing services to academic entities, to a corollary WLC emphasis on designing, manufacturing, and marketing 'state-of-the-art' OMR Scanners for a World-wide market - with a profit goal!

 Item — Box: 1
Identifier: Item 1
Dates: 1968
Found in: University of Iowa Archives / John V. McMillin II Papers / ACCESSION 1 / 34. WLC "RASCOL" Business Plan

While I'm on the topic of senior WLC Management, yet another irritating incident I well remember during one of his visits - shortly before I was headed to Japan to supervise the installation of several MRC scanners for the Ministry of Education - was his 'chewing me out' for my having grown a large mustache, saying that my Japanese contacts would find my appearance culturally offensive. Angered, I shot back, "Well, Mr. Sadlow, the Mexicans love 'em!", which was appropriate, since I was also making several trips to Mexico during this era to install MRC scanners at several institutions there. That ended this exchange. Well, enough about bosses and their managerial style

 Item — Box: 1
Identifier: Item 1
Dates: 1977 June 21
Found in: University of Iowa Archives / John V. McMillin II Papers / ACCESSION 1 / 42. Data, Analysis, Comments and Conclusions on NCS vs: WLC Competitive Overview: Report released by John V. McMillin, WLC/MRC Engineering Manager

A bit of reminiscing by JVM: Dr. Dolch was hired 'early on' (late 1950's?) by Dr. Lindquist to work on Lindquist's 'Electronic Brain' invention (as dubbed by the local press) - the World's first high-speed electro-optical scoring machine located in the north-end basement room of the U of I East Hall building. When I returned to MRC as a full-time engineer in early 1959, I became well acquainted with John, and admired his technical prowess in electronics, despite his formal education being in a rather loosely related field. Another nostalgic aside: My family and I moved from Albuquerque, NM back to Iowa City to join MRC in early 1959 (as noted above) two years after my SUI BSEE graduation on 2 FEB 1957. Having owned a comfortable 2-BDR brick home in Albuquerque, purchased for $8,750, I was shocked at the price of comparable housing in Iowa City. I'll never forget Dolch's amusingly cynical comment to me when I was complaining about this issue to him: he looked me directly in the eye and said, "Oh, sure, you can buy a nice home in Iowa City for $10,000 - how big is your dog?". Well, some things never change! Incidentally, I discovered that several of my newly joined engineering and technician co-workers at MRC had recently purchased their 3-BDR homes - 1,000 square feet more or less - for the princely sum of around $14,000, or less. I have a photo of John Dolch in my JVM archives which was taken in the 'Electronic Brain' room. He died unexpectedly at a relatively young age in 1977, leaving his wife Ann and two young daughters as survivors. See the following website for an excellent historical overview of the U of I Computer Center: http://www.cs.uiowa.edu/~fleck/history.html

 Item — Box: 1
Identifier: Item 1
Dates: 1972 December 17
Found in: University of Iowa Archives / John V. McMillin II Papers / ACCESSION 1 / 55. U. of Iowa Computer Moved to New Center: Cedar Rapids Gazette