Stafsferja
(The administration machine)
Origins: a secret code
During the independence war of the Weslanan, the Weslani used a secret code to get messages through the country. The Weslani used a system that was based on the order of the characters in their languages. They put all characters in four rows, and added some special characters.The character rows were 9 positions long. They made matrices with 9 positions and 4 positions in front of them. In the first 4 positions, one had to mark the number of the row the character was in, in the following 9 positions, the order of the character had to be marked. Later, a new position was placed in front of the others, to indicate if the following character had to be read as a character of a number. (Each character can present both).
Long blank lists of punched holes circulated in the Weslanan. The holes were very small, and on the lists appeared written texts - that said nothing about the war, but contained peaceful and neutral messages, love letters, poems and the like. After the war the system became obsolete.
The rows of characters
The need of better civil administration
As the population of Daleth grew, the need for a better administration became bigger. The administration had to be kept for the following registrations:- of birth and death of civilians, among other information
- addresses of civilians
- number and kind of addresses and houses
- payments of taxes, tolls and gongs
- information for voting purposes (democracy)
- number and kind of guilds and their payments
The flow of information became too big to handle properly. In the best days of the Ildritzer Administration Office, about 200 men and women worked daily in the office, writing down and copying the information. A further 350 workers had a job to trace down the existing information and to keep the archives orderly. The administration of the Office itself existed of 50 workers who controlled all processes.
The expenses of the Administration Office were 25% of the annual bill of the total expenses for the city. There had to be a better solution.
The Stafsferja Company
After Master Elaud had made an attempt for an advanced garatheins, he was asked by a young Naglani woman, named Dagmare, to help her with her machine. Dagmare had worked in the Ildritz Administration Office and had thought about a machine to make her work easier. She has a brother, Withart, who studied military history at the time and noticed the secret code on the cards. It was Dagmares idea to put the names and addressed and other data on the cards en let machines read the cards by counting the holes. The machine should run on steam.The three teamed up, with Master Elaud as the technical engineer. Soon, they asked two Sudzi to join them. Both Sudzi had experience in building tiny mechanic constructions. After three menoth of designing and building, the first Stafsferja was ready. It was still an enormous machine, steam powered, and it ate long cards with data. It could copy the cards, and in the act of copying, the data could be changed by pushing and pulling buttons. (In copying, the data was temporary stored as sticks that stuck out of a board, or were level with it. Thus, the status could be changed. The actual copy would punch holes according to the last state of the buttons. More than one copy could be made, with minor changes if necessary).
When the machine was shown in the salons, it raised more than one eyebrow. The technically interested elite was overwhelmed with joy, and financed further development of the Stafsferja.
The evolution of the Stafsferja
The first Stafsferja (then also named APAS or advanced garatheins) was too big for full use. At the same time, its functions were not fully developed. The team worked on its development and evolution. They improved the machine, so it worked quicker and steadier. The buttons were better designed. With the money they got from the salons, the machine was financed, and they got a loan from the city council as well.The first improvement they made, was using some technics from the garatheins for the Stafsferja, so that it could calculate as well. They programmed some cards with algorithmic information and functions. These cards, that were supposed to be used often, were made of metal and put inside the machine. By switching levers, the right card (plate) could be chosen.
Another improvement was done by Withart, who changed the cards itself. Instead of long cards with one character per line, he made the multi column cards, so that five characters a line could be written. He also designed the upper-left-cut-corner, so that the machine could read if the card was placed the right way. Then he studied on a system of coloured cards, so that the archived cards were easier to find. For example, data-cards should be white, the external program-cards blue, and of course the internal programs were made out of metal (copper). There is no colour-standard yet.
Master Elaud designed the technics to make the Stafsferja work with the given information. It should be able to add different cards, and make a significant output. For example, it should be able to read a persons card, look for the right gong-card, and then make an invoice for the payment of the gong that was still not paid.
The Stafsferja does still have some minor errors and can be made much better. But, as Dagmare says: “We have worked on it for no longer than a bisunjane now. Give us some time to change this world. The work will be done quicker and easier, the workers will be happier. What we have now, is no more than an propaganda-apparatus. Yes, it works, and can be used as such. But the future will hold unimagined uses for this machine.”
Nevertheless, the refusers hate the Stafsferja. They claim the machine will replace the people, and the unemployed will starve to death. They are also against the registration of everything. In the rages of 1839, they tried to burn down master Elauds laboratory and destroy the cards, but they failed.
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