Official publication of NCR REA, Inc. August 2005

On September 22, the 8th Annual Meeting of NCR REA will be held in Dayton, Ohio. The meeting will include the regu-lar business meeting and presenta-tions by special guests and mem-bers. Keith Taylor will be the NCR ex-ecutive speaking at the 8th Annual meeting of NCR REA which is be-ing held at the NCR Country Club. On pages 13 and 14, you will find the agenda and a registration form for attending the meeting.

Newslet ter Volume 9, Issue 3

Keith A. Taylor is senior vice president of NCR Cor-poration's Financial Solu-tions Division.

The division focuses on providing self-service solutions, specifically automated teller machines (ATMs), across all markets. NCR has been the world's leading supplier of ATMs for more than a decade. Previously, Taylor served as vice president of NCR's Systemedia Division following a long career with NCR that began in 1985.

8TH ANNUAL MEETING

Upcoming Events:

• NCR-REA 8th Annual Meeting, September 22, 2005, NCR Country Club

• Homecoming III, Fall 2006

WHAT’S INSIDE

Headline News 1

From the Editor 2

Making H istory 3

Making Connections 5

From our Members 6

In Memoriam 8

The Photo Gallery 9

Welcome to New Members

10

Calendar of Events 11

8th Annual Meeting Registration Form

13

Articles You Might Have Missed

15

The Tale End 16

NCR RETIREE NEWS

NCR COUNTRY CLUB HOSTS 2005 U.S. SE N I O R OP E N

Six restaurants signed on to feed the 3,200 person volunteer corps of the 2005 U.S. Senior Open held at the NCR Country Club in Dayton, Ohio. Throughout the week of July 25 – 31, the volunteers worked more than 7,500 shifts totaling more than 20,000 hours to make the champion-

ship a success. Many of these volun-teers were NCR active employees and retirees. In the next Newsletter, we will share some personal stories from some of our members who volunteered.

NCR Ret i ree News Page 2

and when I presented the card to my pharmacist, I received a 20% discount. This savings recovered one third of my annual AAA mem-bership dues.

Just thought you might want to share with members.

Andrea Stamas

New Look ─ New Editor! As many of you know, I have been editor of the newsletter since the first issue in February 1997. I had no par-ticular skills to do the job; it was something that needed to be done at the time, and I volunteered. It started as a four-page letter to our members and the purpose was to be a means of communication to keep retirees in-formed and in touch with each other.

Starting with this issue, we have an exciting new look. We now have a new editor – NCR retiree and REA member, Dennis Neufarth. Dennis has the technical expertise that I lack. He has contacts with, and the guidance of, others who do this professionally, and he has given the newsletter an entirely new style and feel. I am extremely im-pressed with his first issue and will look forward to receiving the REA newsletter each quarter.

Thank you to those of you who have contributed over the years. We have

had tremendous cooperation from our members. I want to thank you for your help, your contributions, and your friendship. Please con-tinue to contribute your stories and information. Remember, the con-tent of the newsletter is what you make it. Send your articles and pic-tures to Dennis Neufarth at the REA P.O. Box, or email them to Dennis at

dneufarth@woh.rr.com.

Until we meet again at an annual meeting, Homecoming, or other gathering, stay healthy, be happy, and keep in touch.

Your friendly REA volunteer, Carole Kepes Spencer Editor Emeritus

spencer101@att.net

TO THE EDITOR

FROM THE EDITOR

In July, I received a reminder to renew my AAA membership. Included with this invoice was a ‘prescription’ card that is acceptable at more than 50,000 pharmacies for a possible discount on prescription drugs that are not covered by any prescription program.

I had a prescription that was not cov-ered by my pre-65 medical coverage

Newsletter Advisory Committee

Dennis Neufarth, Editor

Carole Spencer, Editor Emeritus

Mary Hayes, Webmaster

Bob Medley, Trustee

Andrea Stamas, Consultant

NCR REA

NCR-REA is incorporated

as a non-profit

organization under Ohio

law. Association

management is on a

volunteer basis.

Mission Statement

To keep our members

informed on issues related

to NCR Corporation and

other matters of interest.

Contact Us

NCR REA, Inc.

P. O. Box 218

Germantown, OH 45327

Phone: (937) 285-0014

Letters To write to the editor, use the address above or send

e-mail to: dneufarth@woh.rr.com

___________________ The NCR Retirees Newsletter is published four times per year, in February, May, August, and November, by

NCR REA, Inc, P. O. Box 218 Germantown, OH 45327.

August 2005 printed and distributed by Patented Printing, Dayton, OH www.patentedprinting.com

Copyright© 2005 by NCR REA, Inc. No reproduction without written permission of NCR REA, Inc.

Printed in the USA

NCR Ret i ree News

This article contributed by Robert W. Gaines Vice President of Field Engi-neering, 1975—1981

In the 1950s, one of my assign-ments was representing NCR's service operation in a major pro-ject by the Bank of America. It turned out to be a project with some historical business and banking significance. The Bank then operated only in the State of California and had hundreds of branches in the State. Each branch, except the smallest, used their own bookkeepers. They had trays of ledger cards repre-senting their customers, to which they posted checks and deposits daily, using NCR Class 3000 machines.

The Bank's Systems Research Department, headed by Al Zipf, developed a systems plan to do their checking account book-keeping in just five places in the State, instead of locally in their hundreds of branches.

The project started out being called ERMA an acronym for Electronic Recording Machine Accounting. That was found to be copyrighted and so was never used in written materials on the project. However, some of us continued to use it in casual con-versation.

General Electric was awarded

the contract for creating the sys-tems and providing the equip-ment to be used. The contract was for twenty-odd million dol-lars. General Electric brought together various manufacturers to explore the best methods of meeting the Bank's require-ments.

System Concept The entire system plan relied on using checks that were encoded with magnetic numbers and characters that were machine readable. Some numbers repre-sented the customer's account number and the amount of the check. Other numbers repre-sented the Bank of America's number along with the branch bank and the Bank's Federal Reserve number. The shape of the numbers and characters was unique. For example, it was im-portant that when the equipment read a "7" it did not mistakenly record it as a “1”. In our meet-ings with Stanford Research Institute scientists, much time was spent designing characters that could be read only one way. All of us had some input into the design of the numbers.

Some areas of the numbers could be narrow, some had to be wider; the familiar look of a number had to change. The magnetic material for each number produced a unique set of electronic pulses. Signals for

an "8", had to be very different from a "3", for example.

The numbers were all in the same line near the bottom of the check, as they are today. They had to be, since they were going past a single read head on the high speed sorter at 250 inches per second. (That is about 21 feet per second). Each character and number was read at six points spaced across its face as it passed in front of the small slit in the read head. The resulting electrical pulses from the read head were fed to special cir-cuitry that decoded them into numbers and signals that were fed to other circuitry in the system. For example, certain pulses would direct a check to go to one of four-teen different pockets on the sorter. Other pulses identified the customer’s account, the branch bank, or the amount of the check. NCR's Amount Encoders When a fully preprinted check had been used by the bank's customer and arrived at one of the branch banks, all of the fields on the check would already be encoded except the amount of the check. The dollar amount of the check had to be printed and had to be on the same line with the other num-bers to identify the amount to be

Page 3

Making History The Bank of America Project: How Those Funny Looking Numbers Got on the Bottom of Your Personal Checks

(Continued on page 4)

charged to the customer's ac-count. Amount encoding was one of the reasons for NCR's early par-ticipation in the project. The Bank used hundreds of NCR's Class 2000 Proof machines, through which every check and deposit coming into the Bank had to pass. They were used in every branch bank. That was the obvious place at which to encode the amount of the check.

The Class 480 and 490 One of NCR's first design as-signments was to create a print-ing machine cabled to the NCR Proof machine, which would put the amount of the check in the proper place. Finally la-beled the Class 480, the new printer used a type face that had to be the same as that used for the other previously encoded numbers. Paul Williams man-aged the design team who did their work in record time. Ex-tensive tests proved the practi-cality of their design and that very essential part of the system was in place.

Early in the program, there were many personal and com-mercial checks with no encod-ing at all. When such checks were received, the required fields were printed on the checks in the branch banks. They used another NCR prod-uct, also created by the Paul

Williams team, the Class 490.

Special Ribbons Check printing companies were heavily involved in this whole affair. They had to develop tech-niques to print numbers with magnetic material, and also print the other parts of the check with the normal ink. In that printing process, the magnetic material had to adhere to the check paper and leave no voids in the individ-ual numbers. It was a very diffi-cult problem for them to solve. It took several years to get the print quality up to a standard that was acceptable. NCR furnished its servicemen with reticles, a small calibrated magnifier, in which could be seen voids in the characters that could cause read errors.

The ink ribbon manufacturers, including NCR, developed rib-bons for the separate encoding equipment. Those ribbons met the same quality standards to match the work of the check printing companies.

The Read Error Problem Solving the read error problem was a mandatory part of having a successful system. Errors could be caused by voids in the charac-ters, a slight misalignment of the string of numbers on the check, or a misread in the electronics. Misreads could cause checks to be sent to the wrong bank, the

wrong customer’s account could be charged for the check, or the wrong dollar amount could be used. It was a critical quality con-trol objective. Every manufacturer worked on their part of the system to eliminate the possibility of read errors, or any other kind of error, which could affect the perform-ance of the system.

The Processing Centers After encoding, the checks moved overnight from the branch banks to the five processing centers by company or private car, bus, plane, UPS, and any other system that would get them there quickly. The processing centers basically con-sisted of check sorters, computers, tape handlers, and high speed printers. Some centers had multi-ple systems for the hundreds of thousands of checks processed every night. All checks and de-posits were handled at these cen-ters, through sorters that were de-signed and manufactured by The Pitney Bowes Company in Stam-ford, Connecticut.

The customer statements were run on the high speed printers built by NCR. The tape handlers were built by Ampex Corporation. Many products were invented from scratch for this project in-cluding the high-speed sorters from Pitney Bowes.

MAKING HISTORY ( C O N T I N U E D F R O M P A G E 3 ) T H E B A N K O F A M E R I C A P R O J E C T

(Continued on page 16)

NCR Ret i ree News Page 4

NCR Ret i ree News Page 5

It’s time once again to send in your membership re-newal payment. This year you will be receiving a record of your 2005 payment and an invoice for paying your 2006 membership dues. Please remit your dues to us not later than September 30, 2005. And remember, we’d love to have you attend the Annual Meeting where you can pay your dues in person. Dues remain the same this year, only a modest $15. With your invoice ,you will receive a personal infor-mation form. This form contains the data we cur-rently have about you in our membership database. Please verify this information, updating erroneous and missing information. On the back of this personal information form there is space to fill in information about your spouse (if eligible). Eligibility requirements are “any person retired from NCR and, any NCR employee or for-mer NCR employee who is vested with NCR Corpo-

ration no matter their former position or current location .” On the form, you will also have the option to say whether or not you want your personal informa-tion published in our Membership Directory and on our web site Membership Directory. Our privacy policy ensures you that personal in-formation you share will be used by us exclusively and not sold, rented, or distributed to anyone other than our suppliers of printing and distribution ser-vices. You may review our privacy policy on the web site www.ncr-rea.org, or by writing to us for a printed copy.

MEMBERSHIP RENEWAL TIME

Date Posted Someone Wants to Find

August 1, 2005 Dick Phillips 152-145 King Edward St. Coquitlam, BC V3K 6M5 Phone: (604) 526-8721 Fax: (604) 526-8751 Email: dick_phillips@telus.net

R. (Bob) Dow and wife, Nancy. Bob worked out of the Bangor, ME of-fice and lived in East Holden, ME. Bob was ex-USAF and a native of Maine. Nancy hailed from Minneapolis.

MAKING CONNECTIONS

This column provides a way to help locate friends and coworkers from your NCR past. Please submit appropriate information through email or regular mail.

NCR Retiree News

FROM OUR MEMBERS I F Y O U H A V E A S T O R Y A B O U T Y O U R G R O U P T H A T Y O U W O U L D L I K E T O S H A R E , P L E A S E E M A I L I T T O T H E E D I T O R .

June 21, 2005 – Tallahassee, FL The Tallahassee [FL] District had their first meeting of past and present employees. Many of them had not seen the others since December 1993. This meeting had been talked about for years, but we never could get anyone to follow up and put it together. So I finally just picked a date about four weeks out and started calling everyone I could and ask about others and phone numbers, etc. I was able to contact 11 NCR employees with three currently working. We met at the Cracker Barrel Restaurant in Tallahassee. Ten people at-tended, and what a great time it was. Everyone en-joyed some good fellowship. We decided we will definitely do this again. Members in attendance were John Harrigan, Randy Pearce, Collice Hatcher, Jack Stuckey, Gary Schmalfuss, Clyde Morgan, Parnell Oliver, John Richbourg, Erwin Dullary, and me, Jack Hanbury. [Great work, Jack. Thanks, Ed.]

July 7, 2005—Mobile, AL Thirteen years ago in June, 1992, the NCRX’s held our first meeting because we were tired of getting together at a funeral home paying our re-spects to a departed ex-NCR person. We gathered first at the Food Court in Bel-Air Mall in Mobile and had quite a good turnout. From that time on, we met in various places such as Pensacola, Gulfport, and Montgomery. The Montgomery gathering was the result of a train trip from Mobile to Montgomery, but that was be-fore the train derailed into the drink North of Mo-bile. So, we have never considered that again, al-though we had a good turnout in Montgomery. Eleven years ago, our meeting was at a dog track in Mobile. (I understand we won about as much money there as we did in Mississippi.) After all this bouncing around, we decided to set up a meeting place on one day of each month so we would all know where we were supposed to be on that particular day of the month. If you would like to join us, we meet the first Thursday of each month at 12:30 p. m. at the Pic-cadilly Cafeteria in the Bel-Air Mall Food Court, 3270 Colonial Mall Bel-Air, Mobile, Alabama. If you would like more information, please contact me, William M. Hankins wmh24@bellsouth.net.

John (Jack) P. Hanbury cur-rently resides in Havana, FL. He has been an REA member since 2000. He retired from Customer Services Division in 1993 after 34 years with NCR.

Page 6

William M. Hankins currently resides in Daphne, AL. He has been an REA member since 1999. He retired from Systemedia Division in 1988 after 41 years with NCR.

Cal McBroom currently re-sides in Georgia. He retired from Field Engineering in 1993 after 35.5 years with NCR. He may be contacted by e-mail: 109487CM@bellsouth.net

NCR Ret iree News

In April 2002, Ernest Mayes, James King, Bill McDaniel, John Hughes, Roy Greenway, and I met for lunch. Some of us had not seen each other for more than ten years. We had been great friends, but time and distance had taken its toll on that friendship. We had such a great time that day, we wondered if others might want to meet with us at a later date. We decided to contact those we knew how to get in touch with. The first Atlanta District NCR Retirees met in June 2002 with approximately 30 present. This was a great beginning. Our membership covers quite a radius with many coming great distances to attend. For this rea-son, we meet every two months because we feel we have better attendance. We have an active e-mailing and phone calling program to keep our members in touch. At our meetings, we acknowl-edge birthdays by presenting a "Little Debbie Cake" and telling their age. From time to time, someone will bring something for "Show and Tell". Some items brought in thus far have been an old Christmas list from the 50s or 60s, signage from one of the service trucks back in the 60s, a copy of the test prospective Field Engineers had to pass in or order to be hired, and several old wall posters of cash registers and accounting machines that we serviced. We acknowledge known ill-nesses and deaths of former employees and their families, as well as other items of interest to the group.

Our membership is open not to just Field Engi-neers, but any others who worked at NCR. This past year, we had a number of past NCR employ-ees, with 15-20 years of service who had not yet retired, join our group. It has been good to renew these old friendships. The included photos are courtesy of Walter Ashcraft, our in-house photographer extraordi-naire. Roy Greenway does a great job keeping our membership list and birthday list up to date, post-ing pertinent information to our e-mail list, and keeping everyone informed. John Hughes serves as our phone list coordinator and does a super job. I'm Cal McBroom and they let me bang the old cash register bell and call them to order.

Page 7

FROM OUR MEMBERS AT L A N TA D I S T R I C T NCR R E T I R E E S

NCR Ret i ree News Page 8

FROM OUR MEMBERS

July 4, 2005 — Centerville, OH

The founder of the National Cash Register Company, John H. Patterson, made an appearance at the Ameri-cana Festival in Centerville/Washington Township [OH]. The theme of this year’s Festival was “Inventions—Creating a Difference”. More than 100 inventions that had their origin in Ohio were featured in a special display. Displayed prominently was a National Cash Register Company 1910 brass register along with a 1900 cash register stand. Other exhibits included NCR Microelectronics chips and NCR micro-encapsulation products. John H. [Richard “Dick” Beach, NCR REA member

since 1998—Ed.] appeared three times during the festivities; The Grand Marshal Dinner, The Parade (riding in a convertible because he refused to saddle his horse), and in the Exhibit Room [see the Photo Gallery, page 9]. If you attended NCR REA Homecoming I, you may recognize John H. from his appear-ance there. I volunteer for the Americana Fes-tival and recruited John H. to participate. I just wanted to share this story with you. Bob O’Connor Co-founder and past President of NCR REA.

Allen, J.R. (Rol), Union City, California, March 25, 2005 Cook, Ann, 81, Miamisburg, Ohio, May 16, 2005 Depke, Donald R. (Don), 80, Duluth, Minnesota, May 10, 2005 Diener, David D., 84, Washington Township, Ohio, June 24, 2005 Erikson, Arvo H., Dayton, Ohio, June 8, 2005 Fokens, Henry (Hank), 91, Peoria, Arizona, May 15, 2005 Gabria, Joanne B., 60, Kettering, Ohio, June 9, 2005 Hann, Brian L., 63, Sarasota, Florida, July 2, 2005 Kersey, Raymond E., 82, Lady Lake, Florida, May 28, 2005 Lange, Edward S., 82, Dundalk, Maryland, May 14, 2005 McGilvery, Hugh F., Jr., 80, Centerville, Ohio, June 12, 2005 Munton, Charles B., 88, Sun City, Arizona, April 3, 2005 Nolte, Robert C., San Diego, California, March 21, 2005 Price, John L., 86, Kettering, Ohio, June 3, 2005 Slick, Reid A., Lancaster, Pennsylvania, April 28, 2005 Steinbicker, Raymond J., 84, Centerville, Ohio, May 25, 2005 Swanson, Robert W., 69, Barnstable, Massachusetts, June 23, 2005

IN MEMORIAM This column depends on your contribution of information on the deaths of your former co-workers and friends who were NCR employees. Please send a copy of the obituary or information to us.

W E E X T E N D O U R S I N C E R E S Y M P A T H Y T O T H E F A M I L I E S O F T H E S E F O R M E R N C R E M P L O Y E E S .

Flowers courtesy of

Carol Clark

www.watercolour.ca

THE PHOTO GALLERY I F Y O U H A V E P I C T U R E S Y O U W O U L D L I K E T O S H A R E , P L E A S E E M A I L T H E M I N A . J P G , . T I F , O R . B M P F I L E T O T H E E D I T O R . P L E A S E I N C L U D E T H E C A P T I O N A N D O R A C C O M P A N Y I N G S T O R Y .

MARCH, 2005—Jim Butts, for-mer managing director, visits with the NCR 25-year Club in Auck-land, New Zealand. Poster of advertisement in

Readers’ Digest, July 1958.

Clyde Rupert with logo of The National Cash Register Company, circa 1941 un-til 1963

NCR Ret i ree News Page 9

John H. Patterson in the invention Ex-hibit Room at the Americana Festival.

Courtesy of Jack Goodwin, Atlanta

Photo courtesy of Walter Ashcraft, Atlanta

Photo courtesy of Dick Beach, Dayton

Courtesy of Peg Butts, Dayton

NCR Ret i ree News Page 10

We certainly hope you like the new look and feel of your newsletter. The Board of Trustees thought it might be appropriate to have a new name for our newsletter. Remember our membership comprises people retired from NCR, their spouses, and anyone vested with NCR, even if they have not yet begun their pension. We invite all of you to submit a name you think would be good for the newsletter. You may submit more than one if you wish. The winner will be cho-sen by the Newsletter Advisory Committee and im-plemented with Board approval. If we receive dupli-cate names, the winner will be the one with the earli-est post mark.

Now, what’s in it for you? A free membership, a free lunch, your name in lights? We don’t know yet, but it definitely won’t affect your tax bracket. Contest ends September 30, 2005. Please email your submissions to dneufarth@woh.rr.com Or regular mail to: NCR REA P.O. Box 218 Germantown, OH 45327

NEWSLETTER NAMING CONTEST

WELCOME TO NEW MEMBERS

Brown, Carl D. & Jan H., Centerville, Ohio Courtney, Jr., Kenneth D., Lilburn, Georgia Dewey, Robert (Bob), Lexington, South Carolina Geri, Barbara, Yellow Springs, Ohio Gillis, Allan, Portland, Oregon Kahler, Sherry H., Miamisburg, Ohio Kaufman, Douglas P., Halifax, Pennsylvania Lash, Jr., James, Milford, Connecticut Megason, John, Van, Texas Rippey, Richard W., Temecula, California Russell, Robert, Floral Park, New York

State City Name Venue Date/Time Contact

AL Fairhope NCRX’s William Hankins

251-626-2509 wmh24@bellsouth.net

AR Tucson Village Inn

Restaurant 1st Monday each month

Dick Vail rivail@cox.net

CA San Diego The NCR

Retirees Club

NCR Cafeteria 2nd Wednes-day of month at

1:15 p.m.

Gordon Belgum 858-672-0458 gbelgum@earthlink.net

CO Colorado Springs

Perkins Restaurant 5190 N. Academy Colorado Springs

1st Friday of month at 7:00

a.m.

Fred Miller 719-578-5182

FL Ft. Myers Bob Evans

9500 Marketplace Road 2nd

Thursday each month at 11:30

a.m.

Tom Schoenheider 239-498-0468 tom2peg@comcast.net

GA Atlanta The NCR Lunch Bunch

Golden Corral Hwy 138 Conyers

2nd Wednes-day of even months at 11:30 a.m.

Roy Greenway at rlg109177Ayahoo.com Cal McBroom at 109487cm@bellsouth.net John Hughes at johughes7@aol.com

IL Chicago NCR Pizza Night Group

Riggio’s Restaurant 7530 W. Oakton Niles

1st Thursday each month At 6:30 p.m.

Alan J. Helstern ALHEL@aol.com

IL Chicago Aurora Breakfast

Group

No regular schedule

Mike Ederati ederati@juno.com

IL Chicago South Side Lunch Group

No regular schedule

Pete McKenna pjmckenna@ameritech.net

IL Chicago X-NCR salesmen

No regular schedule

John Roche 773-445-0336 Gene Gallagher 630-986-6006

IN Indianapolis MCL Cafeteria 3630 S. East St.

2nd Tuesday each month at

6:00 p.m.

Harry Kuhn 317-862-4408 cnhkuhn@hotmail.com

KS Wichita Wichita TFY Club

Quarterly meetings

Linda Ferguson 3718 N. Rock Rd. Wichita, KS 67226 Linda.ferguson@lsil.com

KY Lexington / London

McDonald’s at Palomar Each Wednes-day at 9:00

a.m.

Bill Malicote 859-299-5125 wtmalicote@aol.com

MD Baltimore VFW 6506 8777 Philadelphia Rd. Rosedale

Wednesday every month

except Decem-ber at 5 p.m.

Nelson Bengel 410-557-7302 nelsben@aol.com

MA Marion Sippacan Café Marion

Breakfast every Thursday

Pete Suller 508-295-1016 psuller@comcast.net

CALENDAR OF ONGOING EVENTS

State City Name Venue Date/Time Contact

MI Saginaw Sullivan’s Restaurant 5235 Gratiot Ave.

2nd Tuesday each month at

8:30 a.m.

R. J. (Mickey) McDonald 989-781-1556

NJ Central Ye Cottage Inn 149 W. Front St. Keyport

3rd Thursday each month ex-cept June, July,

August

Ozzie Chavez 732-541-5331 or 732-541-0568 ochaves-carteret.nj@att.net

NJ Saddle Brook Northeastern Retail & Ac-counting Ma-

chine Salesmen

Marriott Hotel Saddle Brook

Every two to three months

Anthony J. Pilato 516-561-1144 pilato9@optonline.net

NM Albuquerque Furrs Cafeteria Wyoming Mall

Lunch each Wednesday at

12:30 p.m.

Marc LaChey 505-275-2331 Marc.lachey@att.net

NC Charlotte Tryon Restaurant 215 E. Exmore St. & Pineville Rd.

3rd Tuesday each month at 7:30

a.m.

Walt Miller 704-552-1009 or mymabe@aol.com or Ralph Weddington 704-366-7226

OH Dayton Former R&D NCR Country Club Reservations suggested

4th Wednesday each month

Carl Wick 937-433-1352 cfwick@aol.com

OH Dayton E&M Dayton Marion’s Pizza Patterson and Shroyer Rd.

2nd Saturday of March and Octo-

ber 11:30—3:00 p.m.

Ray Roppel 513-777-4399 rkroppel@fuse.net

OH Dayton Former NCR Secretaries

Secretaries

NCR Country Club Reservations suggested

1st Thursday each month

Carole Spencer spencer101@att.net

PA Harrisburg GEO’s Family Rest. 6290 Allentown Blvd.

Last Tuesday each month at

9:00 a.m.

Dick Eberly rjegolf@comcast.net

RI Warwick Bickford Restaurant Jefferson Blvd.

Every Tuesday at 8:30 a.m.

Don Culton 401-942-5594 Dfc-jr@cox.net

SC Columbia ROMEO (Retired Old

Men Eating Out)

IHOP St. Andrews and I-26

2nd Wednesday each month at

9:00 a.m.

Jerry Dryden 904-378-7895 jed2004@bellsouth.net

WA Tacoma Ma’s Place Near South Hill Mall Puyallup

Every Tuesday at 9:00 a.m.

Vern Schrotenboer 253-848-6872 vern35@earthlink.net

WA Tacoma Puyallup Bowling Every Thursday at 9:00 a.m.

Vern Schrotenboer 253-848-6872 vern35@earthlink.net

WI Milwaukee Mayfair Mall Food Court

1st Tuesday each month at 9:00

a.m.

Don Eggert 414-453-8424 dre1274@naspa.net

Canada Vancouver, BC

XNCRs Group Lunch 1st Tues-day each month

Dick Phillips 604-526-8721 Dick_phillips@telus.net

MI McComb Township

McDonald’s 45700 N. Gratiot

Every Tuesday morning

Lee Brown 810-791-2061 20812 Lantz Street Clinton Twp., MI 48035

MA Metheun McDonald’s Pelham St.

Breakfast every Tuesday at 8—

8:30 a.m.

Richard Bates 603-394-7760 R.richardbates@comcast.net

Meeting Registration and Continental breakfast 9:00 a.m.

NCR Archive Tour 1:30 p.m.

NCR Solutions Center Tour 1:30 p.m.

NCR Solutions Center Tour 2:30 p.m.

Oral history interview to be scheduled

Member Name

Business Meeting NCR Executive & Special Presentations 10:00 a.m.

NCR Ret i ree News Page 13

The bottom half of this page is a registration form for you to register for this event. Cut out this page, fill out form, fold over, and add postage. Please register early so we can make necessary preparations for the event.

The agenda for the meeting is: 9:00 a. m.. Registration, sign in for tours and oral history interview 9-10:00 a. m. Continental breakfast 10:00 a. m. Business Meeting 10:30 a. m. NCR Executive and Special Presentations 12:00 p. m. Adjourn 1:30 p. m. NCR Archive Tour 1:30 p. m. NCR Solution Center Tour 2:30 p. m. NCR Solution Center Tour

NCR REA 8th Annual Meeting

You can also register by Phone (voicemail): 937-285-0014 Email: c.a.spencer@att.net Online: ncr-rea.org

NCR Country Club, site of Annual meeting

Sign me up for: Time # attending

Spouse/guest/Potential member Name

Address

Phone

Signature

NCR REA, Inc. P. O. Box 218 Germantown, OH 45327

Carole Spencer 8354 Chambersburg Road Dayton, OH 45424

Fold here

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NCR Ret i ree News

As shocking as today’s gasoline prices seem, when they are adjusted for inflation they are still less than the peak price of $1.35 per gallon in 1981. The 1981 price would be equivalent to $2.94 to-day, according to InflationData.com. And, when viewed from an historical perspective, the price of gasoline, when compared to wages, has been on the decline since 1920.

Sticker Shock As costly as gasoline is, it's interesting to compare the average cost per gallon to some other com-monly used items.

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ARTICLES YOU MIGHT HAVE MISSED

Coca-Cola $2.84/gallon Gatorade $5.20/gallon Evian water $5.60/gallon Orange juice $6.64/gallon Crisco oil $7.74/gallon Scope mouthwash $27.20/gallon Shampoo $40.44/gallon Jack Daniel's bourbon $101.12/gallon Visine eye drops $995.84/gallon Nasalcrom nasal spray $2,615.28/gallon

Excerpted from Home & Away, July/August 2005, with permission of Home & Away, an AAA publication.

CHO O S I NG A PR E S C R I P T I O N DR U G DI S C O U N T CA R D R E U S E D C O U R T E S Y O F W W W . A A R P . O R G

3. Is the card sponsor one you know and trust? 4. Are you maximizing your savings with the

$600 Medicare credit (if you qualify or access drug manufacturer rebates)?

5. Do you receive drug interaction safety checks on all prescriptions filled at a network phar-macy?

Here are the top five most important questions for Medicare beneficiaries to consider when choosing a prescription drug discount card:

1. Does the program offer discounts on the drugs you currently take (while reducing overall costs)?

2. Is your favorite pharmacy in the program's net-work?

• do not have Medicaid or other Rx coverage; • want help paying for their prescription drugs;

and • have incomes of less than 200% of Federal

Poverty Level (about $19,000 if single, $25,000 if married).

Visit BenefitsCheckUpRx.org to find the combina-tion of programs that will save you the most money on your medications.

In addition to the Medicare-approved drug discount cards, there are lots of ways for people with Medi-care – especially those with lower incomes – to re-duce their prescription costs.

BenefitsCheckUpRx™ includes information about more than 340 different public and private pro-grams. It will provide the most help to Medicare beneficiaries who:

F I N D T H E B E S T C O M B I N A T I O N O F P R E S C R I P T I O N S A V I N G S F O R Y O U R E U S E D C O U R T E S Y O F W W W . A A R P . O R G

The system developed by the Bank of America was the model for similar systems all across the United States and around the world. The Bank of America has shown a TV commercial this year, 2005, that shows checks going through the sorter and their spokesman saying, “We want to accurately handle one check at a time—eleven billion times a year”. The bank is still using the same system—although certainly through their continuing system improve-ments, a much more advanced system than the original. The funny looking numbers have not changed, are taken for granted, and hardly noticed today by mil-lions of bank customers around the world.

THE TALE END T H E B A N K O F A M E R I C A P R O J E C T ( C O N T I N U E D F R O M P A G E 4 )

NCR Ret i ree News Page 16

Bob Gaines currently resides in Columbia, MO. He has been an REA member since 1999. He retired from NCR Field Engineering in 1981 after 40 years of service.

NCR REA, Inc. P. O. Box 218 Dayton, OH 45327-0218 www.ncr-rea.org Address Service Requested

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Once, some 50 years ago, they were unique and special to only a handful of people.

In the next issue, you can learn more about some of the NCR people involved in the project, and the NCR mainframe computer used to make this a complete system - Editor