The New Business World

Although the theme of The National Cash Register Company's World's Fair pavilion is "Man and His Records," the keynote is really infinity. For the manufacturer of cash register bells "heard 'round the world" is no longer concerned only with keeping track of a store's money or with similar finite aspects of business. The new business world is one of infinite complexity, demands and desires. The world is establishing an infinite number of requirements for improved record-processing techniques

NCR is demonstrating developments at the Fair which approach this concept of infinity. Computers answering questions posed by visitors contain enough information to stagger the imagination; one model even has the ability to recognize patterns with many different variations, utilizing light carried through glass fibers instead of electronic circuits.

In today's age of space technology most people think of "infinity" as the great beyond -- the vastness of universes and galaxies beyond the earth. Yet the NCR pavilion focuses attention on an internal, inward infinity -- that of the microscopic world. Here are featured the molecule, and down past the whirling particles (much like a solar system) the atom itself.

Just as it portrays an infinite micro-world beneath our everyday view, the NCR pavilion also dramatizes the infinity which characterizes the business world of 1964-65. Everywhere in the pavilion are various tools of communication -- some simple, some incredibly complex -- and every one of them being used to record or process fabulous amounts of business information.

"Column of sound" units -- which beam messages to visitors like a ray of light -- are utilized to explain some of the vast requirements of modern

business communication; for example, paper records for the average person which may necessitate tons of forms and other documents.

The inner walls of the NCR pavilion show graphically the many languages used in the world of machines -- the journals and printed records which can be "read" by reading machines, characters and symbols printed in magnetic ink, punched cards, punched paper tapes, and business forms with magnetic coating to store data.

A battery of Western Union "question" stations permits visitors to communicate directly with an NCR "315" computer which is in constant operation to provide printed souvenir answers. The computer is programmed to provide information on famous vacation sites around the world, to give layman's answers to scientific questions, to furnish recipes for world-famous dishes, and to list the most dramatic events which occurred throughout history on the inquirer's day of birth.

Another computer demonstrates modern communication techniques and computer languages, even though it is not located in the pavilion. Here, a bank teller's machine is employed to illustrate the instantaneous processing of depositor's banking transactions. The machine is part of an "on-line" banking system for high-speed and accurate service, and is connected to a computer at a bank several miles away.

Still another computer is the heart of an exhibit illustrating the application of advanced electronic techniques in retail stores. A "310" model, it is part of a "total system" which gathers all phases of retail accounting and record-processing under central electronic control. This display shows how cash registers can be linked through optical reading equipment to a central computer, to immediately process sales and inventory information.

Demonstrating how new electronic techniques have changed business communications, NCR also is showing ultra-modern electronic bank "proof" machines, high-speed check sorters, electronic

Within the 17,000 square feet of the NCR "space-frame" pavilion are several other animated displays, a Japanese garden "island", "evolution panels" of business machine history, and a scale-model department store of tomorrow.

A special "game room" is also available to visitors. Here, both adults and children have a chance to operate various types of business machines and to match wits with them.

"The microscopic world, or let us say the micro-world," states a recorded voice, "is perhaps even more fascinating than outer space, or ocean depths, simply because these limitless pathways of exploration are always at hand, merely waiting for us to look and discover."

In the exhibit, an NCR technique called "micro-encapsulation" opens up fascinating worlds of Tom Thumb wonders. As an example of new micro-world abilities, the exhibit shows the complete contents of the King James' version of the Bible, reduced and assembled into an area less than 2 inches square - every word of which can easily be read under a microscope.

In another display, a "floating" sign carries messages which appear and disappear -- magically dissolving, re-forming words and symbols which move fluidly yet are confined within glass for ease of viewing.

Other phases of the NCR research exhibit demonstrate that the micro-world and the world of tiny capsules can do many more things than just make words and figures appear and disappear. Eerie displays of sensitive materials,contained and controlled within microscopic capsules, illustrate how color and change can be ordered at the command of a finger.

NCR, with a dozen factories and more than 1,000 offices throughout the world, has been a participant in virtually every world's fair for the past 75 years.

Source: NCR Pavilion Promotional Brochure

NCR Research presents, "The Micro-World of Tomorrow," dramatic demonstrations which combine magic and mystery with the science of coming years. Among the world's smallest items in NCR's micro-world are books with pages which must be read by microscope.