METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR PRODUCING ACCORDING TO SIGNAL COPIES OF PLANS OR OTHER MARKS, APPLICABLE ALSO FOR COMMUNICATING BY CIPHER
Year: 1885

page_text: "
I BRUCE HULL MELVILLE of The Naval and Military Club, Pall Mall in the
County of Middlesex, Lieutenant Colonel in the Royal Engineers do hereby declare
the nature of my invention for METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR PRODUCING
ACCORDING TO SIGNAL COPIES OF PLANS OR OTHER MARKS, APPLICABLE ALSO FOR
COMMUNICATING BY CIPHER" and in what manner the same is to be performed
to be particularly described and ascertained in and by the following statement :-
It is often convenient to be able to communicate by telegraph or telephone or
generally by signal from a distance, information as to localities and positions, when
there are no means of transmitting plans. My invention relates to a method and
apparatus for producing according to signal, copies of plans or other marks, the like
method and apparatus being also applicable for communicating by cipher.
For this purpose, I provide, at each of the two stations which have to com-
municate, a board or frame which is graduated along the side by distinctive
numbers or letters, and which has fitted to it a graduated rule which can be slid,
guided parallel to itself, along the board or frame. Assuming that a plan or sketch
existing at the one station has to be reproduced at the other, the sending operator
slides his rule along the plan to some point thereon and signals the two numbers,
letters or marks which indicate that position, the one number letter or mark
signifying the position of the rule, and the other the position of the point relatively
to the rule, in other words, they indicate the co-ordinates of the point. The
receiving operator moves his rule and marks a point according to the signal. Thus
by signalling the co-ordinates of a number of points on the plan at the sending
station and the character of the localities with which those points correspond, the
sending enables the receiving operator to determine corresponding points and to
sketch a plan corresponding to the original.
In like manner, other designs or marks could be reproduced according to signal,
and ciphers might also be communicated in several ways. For example, a message
might be sent as a sketch or drawing with a number of its points marked by the
sender, according to letters or marks reckoned from some predetermined origin of
co-ordinates, and the receiver, subjecting this sketch to his frame would be able to
read the same letters as those by which the points were determined on the sketch,
and could thus decipher the message.

page_text: Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of my said
invention and in what manner the same is to be performed, I declare that what
I claim is
o
1. The herein described method of producing copies by signal, that is to say, by
signalling co-ordinates of points from one station, and marking these points at
another.
2. For producing copies by signal or communicating by cipher, the use, at each of
two communicating stations, of apparatus consisting of a board or frame graduated
along its side and a graduated sliding rule adapted thereto, substantially as herein
described.