Mystery Machine

[Mechanic]

What do you think this machine was used for?
I do know the answer.

[Dave Hughes]

There's no hiding that is is being operated by female hands, so because of the age of the pic, I'm guessing it's not directly related to typesetting.

[Mechanic]

Not the assembly of type for printing.

[Mechanic]

As this has been viewed a good number of times and no one has hazard a guess, I'll provide a clue. It is a specialized  typewriter that required a good memory.

[Dave Hughes]

I was initially going to guess that this machine was situated in a newspaper office's wire room, transmitting copy to other wire rooms, but your "clue" has cast doubts on that theory!

The female operator's attire is not really giving me a clue as to the year, in fact she seems to be wearing some kind of unflattering overall.

So, in summary, I'm pretty much in the dark, but tending to veer towards "wire room" equipment.

[Mechanic]

It was made by IBM, for office work. Nothing to do with wire service.

[Jeff Zilles [jeffo]]

I know what it is but I don't want to spoil everybody's fun in less than two days so i will keep quiet - will point out though that the keyboards of which there are two have only 43 keys each and are not your regular "querty" layout

Good One George!

[Dave Hughes]

Nice to see you back Jeff. Have you got one of these in the "cave?"

I'm feeling under pressure now.

Something to do with financial printing? Cheque books or something?

[Dave Hughes]

Is that lettering on the right-hand cylindrical cover?

Could it be the name of the machine? Shame I can't read it!

[Pressdoctor]

Almost looks like an early stenographer's shorthand machine. Possibly used to record proceedings in machine generated shorthand??

[Mechanic]

 No it isn't for shorthand, or for printing cheques, but you are both heading in the right direction.

[Dave Hughes]

It has got to be some kind of punched card accounting machine:

[Mechanic]

No Dave, the only connection it has to punched card machines is that they were both made by IBM. Remember I said the operator has to have a good memory. Another clue, even if you cold read what is written on the top of the machine you may not understand it.

[John Nixon]

Hi Mechanic:

The IBM 405 alphabetic bookkeeping and accounting machine (later known as the 405 electric punched card accounting machine) was a combined adding, subtracting and printing machine that printed complete reports from punched accounting machine cards. It could be used to list both alphabetical and numerical details from individual accounting machine cards or to print classifications and to accumulate and print totals, net totals and accumulated net totals. The machine was equipped with an automatic plugboard, similar in principle to a telephone switchboard, by means of which any desired arrangement of data could be obtained from the punched cards. It could list cards at the rate of 80 cards a minute and were accumulated without listing at either 80 or 150 cards per minute as specified. Introduced in 1934, the Type 405 was marketed by IBM until May 1949.
This unusual 1951 view of a 405, not only reveals its some of its internal components, but also marks the reconditioning and reassembly of the 100th IBM 405 by IBM's manufacturing facility in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Pictured here are the assemblers who performed the work.

Nothing special by me, maybe changing the file name would have been a good idea - hehe.

Cheers

John

[Mechanic]

Sorry John, you were looking at the machine file name of Dave's guess. Believe me the machine has nothing to do with accounting.

THIS IS THE MACHINE IN QUESTION