11.1

**Dead medium: Indecks Information Retrieval System**

From: strecker_AT_sirius.com (Candi Strecker)

Source: The Last Whole Earth Catalog, 1971 (p. 320, with charming illustration)

Database programs on personal computers have proven extremely efficient at organizing and manipulating certain kinds of everyday information. How did people store and sort this kind of data back in the dark ages before desktop computers, say, 25 years ago?

One method was to use the special sortable paper cards marketed as the "Indecks Information Retrieval System." Each Indecks card was approximately the size and shape of the old computer "punch card." Like punch cards, Indecks cards had a diagonally-cut corner, so they could quickly be aligned before sorting. Each card face had two parts: a rectangular central area (where one would note down information), surrounded by an outer margin with about 80 numbered, punched holes. Each number could be assigned a subject appropriate to one's project.

A "notcher" tool was used to chop a notch in a card from any subject hole to the card's edge. When a stack of cards was aligned and the Sorting Rod (sort of a knitting needle) was run through a particular subject hole, the appropriate cards == those notched at that subject's hole == would drop down out of the deck into one's lap.

At least one competing product existed in this category, referred to below as "McBee cards."

From the Last Whole Earth Catalog's review of Indecks, by Stewart Brand:

"What do you have a lot of? Students, subscribers, notes, books, records, clients, projects? Once you're past 50 or 100 of whatever, it's tough to keep track, time to externalize your store and retrieve system. One handy method this side of a high-rent computer is Indecks. It's funky and functional: cards with a lot of holes in the edges, a long blunt needle, and a notcher. Run the needle through a hole in a bunch of cards, lift, and the cards notched in that hole don't rise; they fall out. So you don't have to keep the cards in order. You can sort them by feature, number, alphabetically or whatever; just poke, fan, lift and catch. [...]

"We've used the McBee cards to manipulate (edit) and keep track of the 3000 or so items in this CATALOG. They've meant the difference between partial and complete insanity."

The subsequent (1980) issue of the Whole Earth Catalog is full-to-bursting with information about personal computers, but contains no mention of the Indecks system. Sometime between 1971 and 1980, this medium seems to have died...

Candi Strecker (strecker_AT_sirius_AT_com)