IMPROVED MACHINERY APPLICABLE TO MUSICAL AND TELEGRAPHIC INSTRUMENTS
Year: 1859

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Hirsch Labin at the Office of
the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 12th August
1859.
I, HIRSCH LABIN, Merchant, of Jassy (Moldavia), do hereby declare the
nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVED MACHINERY APPLICABLE TO MUSICAL
AND TELEGRAPHIC INSTRUMENTS," to be as follows :—
My Invention relates, primarily, to a new disposition of barrels or cylinders
furnished with projecting points or pins, and intended,―
First, to replace the ordinary barrels or cylinders used in some descriptions
of organs and other intruments;
And secondly, to constitute an apparatus for the transmission of telegraphic
despatches.
My Invention also relates to certain collateral arrangements of apparatus
for effecting the writing and performance of music, and the transmission of
telegraphic despatches.
In so far as relates to musical instruments, my Invention consists, first, in
substituting moveable for fixed points or pins in the barrels or cylinders of
such instruments, whereby facility is gained for performing airs which could
not heretofore be produced by such instruments. Secondly, in the employment
of mechanism which provides for removing certain of the points or pins out of

page_text: action, and bringing certain others into action when it is desired to compose a
new air. Thirdly, in furnishing pianos with improved means of executing, with
great facility, piano, forte and medium tones, and also single, double, triple, &c.
tones; and finally, in constructing and arranging apparatus for writing music
and expressing the duration of the tones.
In constructing barrels or cylinders with movable points or pins, and pro-
viding mechanism for changing the points or pins, as before described, I do not
limit myself to any precise details, as various methods of constructing and
fitting the same may be adopted. In some cases I replace the ordinary barrel
or cylinder by a pair of discs with rods extended between them, the points or pins
being fitted between such rods. The apparatus which I apply to pianos mainly
consists, first, of three bars which embrace or cross the key levers, and which,
according as one or the others of them is or are raised by suitable means,
allow the levers to move through greater or less spaces, so as to strike the
wires with different degrees of energy, and produce either piano, forte or medium
tones as may be desired; and it mainly consists, secondly, of certain crossbars
or levers and wires arranged and connected in such manner that by striking a
single key, two, three, or more notes may be simultaneously produced by the
striking of as many wires.
In so far as relates to telegraphic instruments, my Invention comprises the
following improvements:-According to one method of constructing my
improved apparatus upon a cylinder or barrel, I dispose points or pins equal
in number to the letters of the alphabet. The cylinder is supported by an
axis which runs through it and rests in bearings fixed in a frame. The cylinder
is put in motion by a toothed wheel, which gears into one of certain other
wheels, according to the degree of velocity desired. The points or pins as the
cylinder rotates, act on a lever which has a reciprocating movement on a cross
bar;
this carries another lever, which transmits the electric current from the
coils, say to the apparatus. At each turn of the cylinder a certain projection
encounters an arm or lever, which communicates to it a partial rotary move-
ment sufficient to cause a cord attached to the lever on which the points or
pins strike to advance one projection or one letter. The cylinder points or
pins being previously "composed," that is to say, the proper pins for forming a
despatch being raised every time the lever is struck by them a current passes
into the apparatus and a signal is transmitted. As in the case of the musical
instruments, two discs with rods carrying the points or pius extended between
them may be substituted for the barrel or cylinder. Or the same may be
replaced both in the musical and telegraphic instruments by an endless chain

page_text: or other equivalent device. The apparatus for writing music as it is played,
consists of a pen or pencil supported against a band of paper rolled on a
cylinder covered with caoutchouc and supplied, if necessary, with ink. As the
note is struck, the pen or pencil marks the paper as the latter is rotated. The
apparatus for expressing the duration of the tones consists of a toothed cylinder
made to rotate by clockwork, and connected with toothed wheels and levers so
arranged and constructed as to produce the needful movements at intervals.