Analog Computing Component - Cam Gear Computing Unit
name: label: maker
content: Ford Instrument Company
notes: label: Description
content: This component has a dark gray metal frame and numerous linked aluminum gears. Two large parallel components mounted vertically not only have gearing around the edges but have cogs arranged in a spiral on their surfaces. These spirals link to two small round pieces mounted horizontally that each have a ring of indentations around the circumference. A mark in ink on a top component reads: 5657642. A mark on a side gear reads: A176886.
label: Description
content: A yellow tag reads: #75 (/) CAM GEAR (/) COMP. Unit (/) Sperry Gyro. The accession file describes #75 as a “cam gear computing unit” and says it is of “Sperry Gyro design.” Hannibal Ford worked for Sperry Gyroscope before establishing his own company.This may relate to a product of Sperry Gyroscope, not Ford Instrument Company.
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: 1982.0751.33
label: catalog number
content: 1982.0751.33
label: accession number
content: 1982.0751
objectType: label: Object Name
content: analog computing component
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: overall: 19.3 cm x 18.7 cm x 9.8 cm; 7 19/32 in x 7 3/8 in x 3 27/32 in