Year: 1928

The Customer Engineering training course starts, and a Suggestion Program for
employees is established.

IBM redesigns the punch card to hold 80 columns, almost double the previous
capacity. The patented new design, featuring rectangular holes and called the "IBM
card," becomes so popular that the name essentially becomes synonymous with
punched cards.

The IBM Type 4 Tabulator is introduced, the first direct subtraction machine.
Before the Type 4 tabulator, bookkeepers had to add negative amounts as
complementary figures. IBM's subtracting machine saved calculations and
bookkeeping time.

The first public address and program signaling systems for schools are developed
(and are known later as "Schoolmaster".)