Fragment 45 of 72 · drawer 04
Institutional queue cross-section
An original cross-section of batch service showing why machine duration and human elapsed time need not resemble one another.
- Accession
- MW-F-045
- Representative period
- Interpretive batch-computing diagram
- Drawer
- Diagrams & specimens
- Certainty
- moderate
Institutional queue cross-section
Interpretive batch-computing diagram
Observed surface
SUBMITTER → intake → classification → input reader → execution
execution → output queue → printer → sorting → collection rack → SUBMITTER
Processor time occupies one short segment of the complete path.
Implied procedure
Every arrow can wait for a person, device, policy, or earlier job.
The submitter sees only departure at intake and arrival at collection.
Interpretive residue
The diagram turns 'the computer took all night' into a series of institutional handovers.
Scarcity is produced and managed across the whole system, not only in the processor.
Accountability record
Evidence beneath the reconstruction.
These institutional sources support the mechanism or historical practice interpreted above. They do not contain this reconstructed record, its wording, or its invented values.
- IBM History · 2024 The IBM 650 Describes the operational shift from overnight card batches toward more continuous data processing. Open institutional record ↗
- MIT Computation Center · 1962 An Experimental Time-Sharing System Corbató, Daggett and Daley contrast interactive time-sharing with batch-monitor feedback loops in which correcting one program error could require hours or a full day. Open institutional record ↗