1970 HUNGARIAN CENSUS OF POPULATION Information on the data collection and processing (1977)

I. THE COMPREHENSIVE REWIEV OF THE DATA COLLECTION AND PROCESSING - 8. The electronic data processing of the census of 1970

The most important technological innovation, as far as the publication is concerned, was th<. production of mirror-plates to be directly photographed. The printing of the mirror-plates to be included to a volume consisting of 400-500 pages and containing about 150 tables lasted 80 hours or so, using electric type-writer controlled by paper tape. Owing to the performance of the computer type IBM 360/20 which started to work in the first half of 1972, the production of the mirror-plates filling up a volume could be reduced to 1-2 hours. The numerical results of the census of 1960 were printed by means of traditional techniques (mono-setting) which contributed to the lenghtening of the long transit-time anyway, and required extraordinarily careful proof-reading and further input pf manual work. It should also be mentioned here that the communication tables were compiled, on the basis of the processing tables, by manual techniques, while this operation was performed this time on electronic computer. The adjustment of the processing technology to the possibilities inherent in the computer techniques resulted in the reduction of the transit-time (without the recording of the data) to 1-1,5 month as opposed to the 4-6 months experienced in i960, despite of the fact that the strength of the census staff in 1970 was but 15-18 per cent ofthat of 1960. On account of the new data processing system, the preparation of the extraordinarily largescale activities connected with the data collection, processing and publication and, last but not least, on account of the fact that no practical experiences were at disposal concerning the automatic correction of errors, the launching of the communication was postponed. Nevertheless, the heavy-duty machine was able, within the short-term period after the conclusion of the preparatory activites, to produce volumes of "ready for print. " 85