Scope and Contents This Original Copy of my MRC Lab Note book #6 primarily covers hand-written entries such as: mathematical analyses, derivation equations, design sketches, circuit schematics, logic diagrams, flow charts, lab measurement data, conceptual ideas, and any other notations or entries were related the design of 'transistorized' logic circuits. In those early days, one could not simply buy an integrated-circuit chip to execute Boolean functions, such as OR, NOR, AND, and NAND "0/1" binary-tree decisions. Although there were a number of available commercial sources for printed-circuit boards for use in processing-systems design, they were expensive, and not particularly well suited to our special needs at MRC for incorporating them into our newer OMR scoring machines, that would be totally solid-state, leaving the MRC Mod I, II, & III vacuum-tube era behind 'for once and for all'. Accordingly, it was one of my major tasks during the early 1960s to design a complete family of logic...

Scope and Contents

This Original Copy MRC Lab Note Book continues, in a sense, where #6 Lab Book ended. That is, the circuit/logic designs covered in #6 are implemented into a family of MRC printed-circuit card assemblies for use on the MRC Mod 7 scanner and the MRC Mod 8 OMR/punched-hole card-reader. A page in this lab book identifies at least twenty-five MRC printed-circuit logic/signal-processing cards in the family, and there may well have been more. The Folder in the Media Disc DVD contains 46 JPEG-Image files of this Lab Notebook, and is named: 1964_01_MRC Eng.Notebk JVM#07

Scope and Contents

This Note Book contains some miscellaneous logic design and a new transistorized PAS (Peak Amplitude Storage) concept (later implemented in MRC scanners) for capturing and storing the peak-signal level of a response mark from a OMR 'bubble' mark, and secondly, a rigorous (theoretical) trigonometric analysis of sheet skew and side-shift factors during the feeding of an OMR sheet, so as to aid in the understanding of the alignment and clock-timing for controlling the PAS circuitry. There are 56 JPEG-Image files (selected) in the Media Disc (DVD) Folder name: 1965_09_MRC Eng.Notebk JVM#08

Scope and Contents

Archival Original Copy of an MRC Engineering JVM Lab Notebook, spiral bound. 25 scanned pages in associated JPEG Folder. This one covers solid-state amplifier circuits and the 30-channel sensor alignment to 12 punched-hole formats for the MRC Model-1501 OMR/IBM-Card reader

Scope and Contents

Another archival Original Copy of an MRC Engineering JVM Lab Notebook, spiral bound. This one covers parity-circuits, quad-converters, byte-validity checkers, and other designs related to the MRC Mod-1501 reader

Scope and Contents From the Collection: The Papers of John V. McMillin II primarily chronicle developments at the Measurement Research Center (MRC), which was founded in 1952 by Prof. Everett F. Lindquist of the University of Iowa College of Education. Prof. Lindquist pioneered the design and use of standardized tests in American public schools, beginning in the late 1920's. By 1953, he and his staff developed an optical mark reader (OMR) for scoring students' test answer sheets. The electronic brain, as the OMR was called at the time, was a breakthrough in providing, for the first time, large-scale high-speed test scoring. However, its vacuum-tube technology was becoming obsolete, and by 1959 MRC began work on the design and development of solid-state, or transistorized, circuitry to replace the less stable vacuum tubes. The bulk of the papers document activities at the MRC from 1959 to about 1980 from the perspective of a project engineer, and later engineering manager, who was closely involved with...