Automatic card selector for random-access card file system

Abstract

A random-access card file system formed by card-storing cartridges, each capable of accommodating at least one deck of cards, and an automatic card selector adapted to extract any desired card therefrom regardless of its location in the cartridge. Each card in the deck includes an upstanding tab whose longitudinal position is related to a particular point on an incremental linear scale extending the full length of the deck. The selector includes a carriage movable to a position in registration with any desired incremental point on the scale, the carriage supporting a crane having a card picker thereon, whereby when the carriage is set to a particular scale point and a switch is actuated, the crane completes an operating cycle in the course of which it bows down over the cartridge to enable the picker to engage and clamp onto the tab of the selected card and to then lift the card to withdraw it from the cartridge. To prevent the picker from also withdrawing cards that stick on to the selected card, the upper corners of the deck are straddled by a pair of card separators, each having a row of gaps therein capable of passing only a single card, the entry to each gap in the row being defined by converging walls. When a selected card is lifted above the deck by the picker and other cards sticking to the selected card are also lifted, as the picker rises, it draws the upper corners of the selected card through the nearest entry in the row for passage through its gap, the other cards being intercepted by the walls of the entry and being caused to fall back into the deck.