IMPROVED APPARATUS FOR COMPOSING, TRANSMITTING, AND DECIPHERING SECRET TELE- GRAMS
Year: 1879

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Herbert John Haddan at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents on the 8th May 1879. A communication
from abroad by Messieurs G. Schacher et Compagnie, of Paris, in the Republic
of France.
HERBERT JOHN HADDAN, of the Firm of Herbert and Company, Solicitors of
Patents, of 67, Strand, in the City of Westminster, Civil Engineer. " IMPROVED
APPARATUS FOR COMPOSING, TRANSMITTING, AND DECIPHERING SECRET TELE-
GRAMS." A communication from abroad by Messieurs G. Schacher et Compagnie,
of Paris, in the Republic of France.
The improved apparatus consists in or of several alphabets or signs arranged on
concentric circles on a transmitting or recording 'dial, on which circles the same
letters or signs have different values given them following some given key, the key
being composed of as many letters or devices as there are movable alphabets
employed, and their letters arranged in the order of the key, and to each other in
regard to the letter A or initial device of a fixed alphabet. The apparatus is con-
structed in a convenient and suitable case or receptacle which holds it, and the
various wheels, levers, pinions, and other mechanical devices, together with printing
types, rollers, and recording bands of paper employed. On the face are the dials
composed of annular concentric plates marked with, say, 5 alphabets, Nos. 1 to 5;
the exterior No. 1 is a fixture; and Nos. 2 to 5, both inclusive, are movable and
adjustable independently of each other, and are fixed as desired by attachment
pieces and screws. Concentrically to these annular plates is another furnished
with cavities or contact points that correspond with the letters of the fixed alphabet.
When the apparatus is worked, the contact point of the manipulating handle is
made to make contact in the cavities. Below in the box is a type disc carrying the
same letters as the fixed alphabet, and paper bands arranged on rollers are printed
on by the same disc.
The concentric alphabets are connected with a writing or recording disc, having
on its circumference as many printing types or letters as there are letters in an
alphabet, and prints said letters upon a travelling band in the following manner :-
In the centre of the concentric alphabets is a shaft carrying a toothed pinion
which imparts a rotary motion to the writing disc by means of tooth wheels as
soon as a radial hand lever attached to the top of the said shaft is turned over the
alphabets, the arc described by the writing disc being in proportion to the arc des-
cribed by the hand lever. A band which travels in front of the writing disc is
Paine 97 1

page_text: pressed against the latter by a hammer set in action by every motion of the hand
lever, so as to print on the band the letter of the writing disc which is opposite
the hammer, the circumference of the writing disc having been colored by a coloring
roller pressed against the disc by a spring or otherwise. The travelling band is
drawn forward one division of the disc by every motion of the hand lever by
means of friction rollers, a ratchet wheel, and a click.
If, for instance, the word "good" is chosen as key for transcribing a telegram,
the g of the second dial, the o of the third, the o of the fourth, and the d of the
fifth dial or concentric alphabet, are brought upon the same radius as the a of
the fixed or first dial, after which the movable dials are fixed, and the transcription
of the telegram can be effected by turning the hand lever until it comes over that
cavity or contact point which is on the same radius as the required letter of the
moveable dial or alphabet belonging to this letter, thereby turning the writing disc
so as to bring before the hammer the same letter which is on the fixed alphabet
in the radius over which the hand lever stops.