Any info about autocut series for HP-97

[David Hayden]

I recently acquired a bunch of 67/97/41C cards, including an extensive HP-97 application called autocut by Automated Building Components (ABC), Inc. Does anyone have any information, particularly documentation, about this application? I would love to make it available.

Here's what little I've found so far. Autocut is used for sizing trusses and beams of various sorts. ABC was bought by (or changed its name to) gang-nail. Gang-nail was bought by (or changed it name to) Mitek. I contacted Mitek and they don't have any info about Autocut, except that they might have released a version for a TI calculator too.

ABC trademarked "autocut" on Oct 19, 1977. The trademark was cancelled on May 22, 1985.

The May 10, 1978 issue of the financial times contains an announcement at the top left of page 10 that reads:

Quote:Using the Hewlett Packard 97 programmable calculator, Automated Building Components (ABC) has developed a calculator programme, called the Autocut, to provide a speedier and more accurate way of estimating cutting details when designing timber roof trusses.

The programmes cover all the basic truss types and are recorded on individual magnetic cards filed in a plastic folder. They are available in licensed Gang-Nail fabricators, says the company, at a competitive price.

Said to reduce a job normally taking hours to a matter of minutes, the selected truss configuration is fed through the HP 97's reader mechanism and information is received regarding span, sizes of top and bottom chords, web sizes, overhand lengths and cantilever sizes.

More from ABC, The trading Estate, Farnham, SUrrey GU9 9PQ

There's an announcement for autocut in the german issue of Computer world here. If you search for '"autocut" "HP-97"' in google, this is the first link and you can translate the page. This appears to be same as the Financial Times announcement.

Hopefully somebody has this.

Thanks!
Dave