IBM Turns 100: Former Ironwood Resident Inventor Big Part of Company's History

IRONWOOD, MI - Saturday, March 19, 2011 - "There comes a time when every enterprise must ask itself: What difference have we made? What impact have we had on the world? What have we changed?"

"In 2011, IBM reflects on 100 years of innovation, bold risks and transformative breakthroughs. We celebrate the big wins—and the mistakes we've overcome. We renew our purpose, unite in our legacy and define our aspirations for the future." These words can be found on IBM's special website celebrating their 100 years of operation. http://www.ibm.com/us/en/sandbox/ver1/

There is no doubt that IBM's 100th anniversary is very newsworthy, but many people may be wondering why the Superior Chronicle would be featuring a story about a company that seemingly has no ties to Ironwood or the surrounding area. Well the truth of the matter is simply this... one of IBM's most significant inventions, one that we are all pretty much familiar with... was invented in 1933 by a physics teacher at the Luther L. Wright High School -- Reynold B. Johnson.

The original machine he invented was known as the Johnson Markometer. It was used to grade test papers. Originally, students had to make perferations in a test form that Johnson's machine would read electrically. Johnson made improvements to his machine. Instead of perforating the answer sheet, students would simply fill in the dot corresponding to their answer with a #2 pencil. That's right, Reynold Johnson, Ironwood high school science teacher, invented the technology that allowed for automated testing. Today, that same technology is used in surveys, tests, voting and even to select lottery numbers. IBM's first version of Johnson's machine became known as the 805 Score Testing Machine.

The following article appeared in the Ironwood Daily Globe back on January 16, 1933. It was titled "Robot Teacher Here: Instructor Invents Device for Grading Test Papers."

While the nation is trying to find out all about technocracy, a movement with ideas as intelligible to many persons as Einstein's theory of relativity, a robot (there's a good word to learn if you want to talk like a technocrat) has been added to the educational system in Ironwood. The schoolma'am need no longer postpone a heavy date with the boy friend because she has a pile of examination papers to correct. All she has to do is hand the papers to Mr. Robot (whose real name is Markometer), press a button, and the job is done.

And the student who guessed wrong on whether Caesar was travelling north or south when he crossed the Rubicon will have no comeback, for there on an electric meter will be recorded the results of the mechanical grading. The robot, invention of Reynold Johnson of the Luther L. Wright high school faculty, is described as a new and practical machine which is being marketed under the name "Johnson Markometer."  The device corrects test papers electrically by indicating the questions which a pupil has answered correctly and registering the pupils total score on a grade-indicating.

Tests of the usual objective kind are given to the pupil who instead of encircling, underlining, or writing down the correct answer punches out a perforation on the answer sheet. The perforations on the answer sheet have been numbered so that the pupil may choose the correct answer out of a number of possible solutions to each question. After the test has been taken, the pupils examination paper is inserted into the machine and a light flashes on opposite each correct answer and an electric meter registers the grade the pupil has attained on the examination.

Test papers can be corrected and the grade recorded on the paper at the rate of 10 papers a minute and the process of correcting even the most difficult test is so simple that a child can do it. Being mechanical in operation the chances for error in correction are almost entirely eliminated.

 The machine has been used in a number of classes in the Luther L. Wright school and has proved satisfactory and practicable. It will be exhibited by Mr. Johnson at the sixty-third annual convention of the Department of Superintendents of the National Education Association in Minneapolis next month. The device is being marketed by an educational test publishing company of Minneapolis and Philadelphia.  (January 16, 1933)

In the June 1971 edition of Think, the IBM employee publication, Reynold Johnson was honored in the following article. The name of the article is "Rey Johnson: A Full life, A Fuller Future" and it was written by William D. Blankenship.

On the eve of his retirement, after 37 years of brilliant innovation in IBM, he has something new to engage his talents -- the future of education.

Reynold B. Johnson's life has been packed with inventions that have changed the worlds of both education and data processing.

On the eve of his retirement, the 64-year-old IBM Fellow is best known as the man who was hired by Dr. Benjamin Wood in 1934 to develop the first commercial test scoring machine; who headed the project to develop the 021 keypunch in the years after World War II; and, who started a small IBM laboratory in San Jose in the mid-1950's that developed the concept and hardware for direct access storage for computers.

You might believe that at 64 the major impact of Rey Johnson's work has already been felt on the world.

"Not by a long shot," says Louis D. Stevens, manager of the Advanced Systems Development Division laboratory in Los Gatos, where Johnson has been working on educational technology. "The work that Rey Johnson is doing now in educational technology is still in the development stage, and it may turn out to be his most important contribution yet."

Says Johnson: "When I was made an IBM Fellow five years ago I decided to go back to the field I started in—education—and see what new tools of learning I could create."

For his outstanding work, Johnson recently won the 1971 Machine Design Award of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). The Award cited his "many outstanding contributions to the educational and data processing fields through his numerous ingenious inventions and innovations dating back to the development of the first electric test-scoring machine." The Machine Design Award was established by the ASME's Design Engineering Division to recognize outstanding achievement and distinguished service in the field of machine design. Johnson holds a total of 80 patents, and two pending.

Finding ways to challenge the minds of the young has always been a goal of Johnson's. When he was a high school science teacher in Ironwood, Mich., two of his students actually built the first experimental test scoring machine, working under Johnson's directions. The two boys had been assigned to Johnson by the court to work out a sentence for stealing a radio from the school. Johnson turned the sentence into a learning experience for the boys.

"Dr. Wood saw the possibilities in the test scoring machine, but had a tough time selling it to management until he took it to Thomas J. Watson. [Sr.] Mr. Watson immediately grasped the concept and its commercial possibilities," Johnson explains. "Finally, I was hired by IBM to complete the development work, and the first 805 test scoring machine was marketed in 1937. Of some 1,000 that were produced, a large number are still in operation today."

The acceptance of the test scoring machine in the late 1930's, and during World War II (according to the Government, it helped place recruits in the right kinds of jobs), firmly established Johnson as one of IBM's most innovative engineers.

"I was given only two guidelines," Johnson recalls: "Keep the number of people in the lab to about 50, and experiment in a technology that no one else in IBM was working on." As he assembled his staff in a small, rented building in downtown San Jose, Johnson cast around for new areas of data processing development. "During those years I made the two best decisions of my life," he says. "First, I decided we should experiment in random-access storage. I soon discovered that several other people around the country were toying with the same thought. They were trying to store randomly-accessed information on all kinds of media, such as wire and tape strips. The other decision that I'm proudest of was to concentrate on storing information on laminated disks."

The work done by Johnson and his colleagues resulted in a burgeoning new peripherals industry. Today, about 10 miles south of that tiny first laboratory, more than 6,000 people are working at the spacious 356-acre site of the San Jose Systems Development Division laboratory and Systems Manufacturing Division plant, where the main mission continues to be developing and producing direct access storage equipment for computers. Scores of other companies throughout the country also make peripheral computer equipment made possible by Rey Johnson's breakthroughs.

At the time he became an IBM Fellow in 1966, Johnson made this prediction about education: "The classroom of the future will be as different from today's as the computer center is different from the accounting room with its high stools of a few decades ago." He has already been proven right.

What will future schools look like? "They will resemble many of today's homes," says Johnson. "A great deal of voluntary and individualized education will take place with the help of such technical devices as television and tape recorders."

"The most dramatic change will be in the autonomy of education, with responsibility for learning turned over to the student himself. The tools of instruction will permit him to establish his own learning speed. We already know that when a student can work at his own level, he achieves mastery at that level. Success becomes a habit even for pupils of modest scholastic ability."

Developing the technical tools to make that kind of education possible is an engineering problem that has so far baffled the world of education. But Johnson, who is one of the members of IBM's Educational Advisory Board, believes the problem can be solved.

"Only cost has been a deterrent," he says. "The computer's ability to provide instructional guidance on continuous demand and to relieve the teacher and student of time-consuming clerical chores is being demonstrated. It's a widely-held opinion among educational leaders that individualized education cannot become widespread without the computer. The fact is that classroom terminals renting for two to five percent of the current cost of classroom operation can be built now. Before the end of the century they will be as common in the classroom as blackboards are today."

On October 23, 1998, the Daily Globe featured the following article highlighting and honoring Reynold Johnson's life...

Today we remember ...Reynold Johnson, father of the disk drive. Johnson, who had ties to the Gogebic Range, died recently at the age of 92 in San Jose, California.

A prolific inventor whose San Jose laboratory developed the IBM RAMAC 350 in 1956, making him the "Father of the Computer Disk Drive," he taught science at the Luther L. Wright High School in1931. Johnson was known for his many inventions. Every teacher who has given a multiple-choice test can appreciate one of Johnson's first inventions.

While at LLW, Johnson built a device to electrically record test answers made using a No. 2 pencil lead. Beatrice Rashleigh, a teaching, colleague at LLW and later his wife of 64 years, wrote a newspaper story about it. An IBM salesman saw it and gave Johnson a job.

Touching everyone Johnson was also responsible for the half-inch videocassette tapes used by Sony today. While on loan to Sony on another project, he come up with a prototype of a VCR tape less than half the width of the tape Sony was then putting on reels. During his 35 years with IBM, Johnson was named one of the prestigious IBM fellows and put his name on at least 90 patents.

EDITORIAL COMMENT: The history of Ironwood is rich and many people don't realize what a huge impact this area has made on the entire country. It's not just about mining, iron ore, and copper. It's important for this area to embrace this information and to exploit it. We have many reasons to be very proud of this area, and considering the largest growing trend in tourism is heritage tourism, we need to start developing ways to use our past history to insure that we will have fruitful future.