I read a NY Times article about Winston Moseley, who killed Kitty Genovese.
It said he was a Remington Tab Operator.
I looked up in Google but see mostly references to Australia. I guess TAB is something like a betting place there? But that obviously isn’t it.
I know Remington was a gun and razor and typewriter brand at one time right?
So what does “Tab Operator” mean in that since. This occurred in the 1960s.
Well, he indented Ms Genovese to death. 
(Sorry, I don’t know the real answer, but I couldn’t resist.)
It’s actually Remington Rand tab operator - the Rand is important because they later became much better known in computing under that name. I haven’t run it down entirely, but I’d bet a “Remington Rand tab” is short for tabulator - he was a pre-electronic computer technician, probably tasked with managing punched card stacks in a tabulating system.
Here’s a good short history on RR tabulators and the industry.
ETA: Maybe he was pissed because he saw the end of his job and industry coming within a couple of years.
I suspect someone that used this.
Might be similar to a keypunch operator, for punching holes in Hollerith or stock ticker tape. Just a guess though.
A tab operator ran machines that tabulated punched-card data, maybe punch-paper tape (used in banking applications) as well.
The machines, collectively known as unit-record equipment, were made by many manufacturers, not just Remington (which later became Univac).
You had to do more than just dump the cards in. For example, for an IBM tabulator known as a counter-sorter (the 514), you had to set up program boards, plugging in combinations of wire connectors to control which data items were processed, and how.
The machines were big, clanking beasts, the size of large furniture. Tab operators tended to be men due to the upper-body strength needed for heaving boxes of cards around.
Punched cards, as a medium for storing data, were around since before electronic computers were around (as we understand the concept of computers today), and continued to be used well into the earlier computer era.
There were a variety of electro-mechanical devices for processing that data. One was the card sorter, which would read a stack of cards and sort them into numerical or alphabetical order according to the data in certain columns.
Another was the general purpose “tabulation machine”, or “tab machine” that could read these cards, do some fairly basic data processing them, and print reports. In the simplest usage, a tab machine would read cards and simply print the data on them. It could also total up the numbers in selected fields (columns) of the cards.
The exact processing to be done was done by plug-board programming. You had a large board with plug-in wires that somehow controlled what the machine would do. A low-level tab operator would simply shovel cards through these machines and tear off the printed reports. A more proficient (and higher-paid) operator would know how to wire up those plug boards to create the desired reports.
Hang tight, I’ll google up some photos and post links . . .
A 1969 video on a punch-card tabulator.
A YouTube search for** tabulator** hauls up a buncha interesting stuff in the column on the right.
Some on-line sites with lots of explanations and photos:
Here’s a web site describing one make of tabulating machine, with a whole bunch of photos. The first photo shows the machine with two of the above-mentioned plug-boards in front of it.
Here’s an article about Herman Hollerith, inventor of punch cards, first used in the United States Census in the 1890’s. Article includes a photo of an early card sorter.
Early data-processing center, with photo showing a room full of tab machines.
Relatively modern (1949) card sorter, with detailed photos and explanations of how it works.
Wikipedia article about plugboard, including several photos.
Univac 1004 tab machine (1963) with photo and a bunch of views of the plug board.
Photo of full-wired plug board.
Cool, thanks
