Analog Computing Component - Planetary Gear and Dials
date: label: date made
content: ca 1940
name: label: maker
content: Ford Instrument Company
notes: label: Description
content: This aluminum object has one round face painted black. The outside ring of this face has a scale of unequal parts marked from .5 to 10 and then Ꚙ [infinity]. Rotating the dial inside this ring rotates two gears attached to a cylinder that rises from the dial. The cogs of these gears link to a single gear below them that is smaller in radius but higher. A mark on the frame for this smaller gear reads: 3716655. Between the gears that rotate with the dial plate is a second gear with larger diameter that is attached to the dial ring by four rods. A black mark on this gear reads: 113T-. Near the top (or back) of the mechanism is another ring.
label: Description
content: Ford Instrument Company designed and produced gears like this one to be part of mechanisms that carried out calculations (analog computing devices). According to the accession file, this is a planetary gear with dials, “a two speed dial assembly for reading data. Used on MK I computer.”
label: Description
content: References:
label: Description
content: A.B. Clymer, "The Mechanical Analog Computers of Hannibal Ford and William Newell," <I>Annals of the History of Computing</I>, 15, #2, 1993, 19-34.
label: Description
content: Accession file.
label: Description
content: K.C. Epstein, <I>Analog Superpowers: How Twentieth Century Technology Theft Built the National Security State<I>, Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2024.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: New York, Queens, Long Island City
topic: label: Subject
content: Mathematics
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Mathematics
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Ford Instrument Company, Division of Sperry Rand Corporation
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1982.0751.09
label: catalog number
content: 1982.0751.09
label: accession number
content: 1982.0751
objectType: label: Object Name
content: analog computing component
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: aluminum (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 6.8 cm x 9.2 cm x 9.2 cm; 2 11/16 in x 3 5/8 in x 3 5/8 in