Jonkers Business Machines
Jonkers Business Machines (1960-1969) was a US company that developed the Termatrex index machine.
Jonkers Business Machines was a company founded by Frederick Jonker, a Dutch American engineer to develop and market Termatrex equipment.
Jonkers began to develop the Termatrix system around 1950 and formed a patent holding corporation on 1953, which became an operational company in 1960.
Termatrex was an optical coincidence index system, also known as a feature card system. Instead of a record for each document with index terms attached, a record was created for each attribute (index term for topic, creator, etc., with the ID for each document assigned that attribute. A large cards, one for each attribute, had a fine grid with a single position for each document ID. To index a document the cards for its attributes were superimposed and a hole carefully in at the at the unique position for that document's ID.
To search for all documents with any particular attribute the card for that attribute is palced on a lighted surface and little spots of light, only where holes have been punched, reveal the ID numbers of all such documents.
Coordinate searches -- for documents with a two or more particular attributes -- were findable by superimposing the cards for the two or more attributes on the lighted surface. Spots of lights would appear only for documents having those attributes, regardless of whatever other attributes those documents may have had.
The basic equipment, other than the cards, were a punch (drill) [1] and a reader (viewer). [2]
Gerald Sophar was an officer in the company. Other individuals involved included Mortimer Taube.
Further reading
- Frederick Jonker, “The New ‘Termatrex’ Line of I.R. Systems—The ‘Minimatrex’ Line of I. R. Systems,” American Documentation 14, no 4 (1963): 276-282. Describes the complete line of Termatrex equipment and the the new line of Minimatrex equipment.
- Termatrex card punch Smithsonian. [3]
- "'Termatrex card reader Smithsonian. [4]