This late 1950s infomercial “Truck Route to Better Records” promotes the electronic tabulation and calculating computers offered by Univac for the trucking industry. The film emphasizes how a computer will save time in the office by taking over routine tasks from employees and allow the business to grow through a more timely and accurate provision of statistical information. The film mainly shows the different features of both the Remington Rand Univac 60 (1952) and the Univac Solid State Computer (announced 1958). The infomercial makes a detailed and tailored business case towards potential enhancements in the trucking industry. It was produced by Univac.

0:23 Technicians loading punch cards into a Remington Rand 409 computer, 0:40 neat output tables from 409 are shown, 0:51 Punch cards are being sorted through on the 409, 1:03 Female employee verifies data on punch cards, 1:21 Interstate Commerce Commission Report on the table, 1:30 Payroll punch cards, 1:50 female punch operator inputting data, 2:11 Male employee inspecting results out of 409, 2:19 409 sample operating report, 2:36 Company boss in his office on the phone, 2:53 Conversation between boss and employee over operating report, 3:00 operating footage of the 409, 3:27 Remington Rand Univac 60 shown (1952), 3:51 Male employee loads punch cards into Univac 60, 4:00 operation board of Univac 60 is shown, 4:04 perforated tape running through Univac 60, 4:32 Male employee loading punch cards into Univac 60, 4:48 Full shot of Univac 60 Computer and punch cards, 5:03 Univac Solid State Computer shown 5:05 Univac Solid State Computer operating board shown, 5:21 male employee going through Solid State Computer outputs, 5:41 Neat Solid State Computer outputs shown (freight bill register), 6:06 parallel shot of Computer outputs and an employee manually writing numbers, 6:20 Conversation between boss and employee in boss’ office, 6:51 Supervisor walking through a chaotic tabulations department giving instructions (before the computer), 6:58 Same scene, just everything is much neater after, 7:08 Employee entering information into punch card, 7:18 Female employees talking to each other, 7:27 Boss and employee in office having a meeting, 7:38 Mack Truck shown on road, 7:45 shots of the road from the view of the truck driver, 7:51 Title Slide “Truck Routes to Better Records”, 7:58 Film made possible through cooperation of: Mack Trucks Inc., Trailmobile Inc., O’Boyle Tank lines, Gordons Transports Inc., Norwalk Truck Lines Inc., 8:11 Produced by Univac

Founded in 1927 through a merger, Remington Rand was an early American business machine manufacturer, originally a typewriter manufacturer and in a later incarnation the manufacturer of the UNIVAC line of mainframe computers. In 1950, Remington Rand acquired the Eckert–Mauchly Computer Corporation, founded by the makers of the ENIAC. The Remington Rand 409 (designed in 1949) was sold in two models: the Univac 60 and Univac 1920. Both were punched card calculators which were programmed with a plugboard, was designed designed in 1949. The model numbers referred to the number of decimal digits the calculator could read from each punched card. The UNIVAC Solid State was a magnetic drum-based solid-state computer announced by Sperry Rand in December 1958. It was one of the first computers to be (nearly) entirely solid-state, using 700 transistors, and 3000 magnetic amplifiers (FERRACTOR) for primary logic, and 20 vacuum tubes largely for power control. It came in two versions, the Solid State 80 (IBM-style 80-column cards) and the Solid State 90 (Remington-Rand 90-column cards).

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