Analog Computing Component - Holding Friction
date: label: date made
content: ca 1920-1955
name: label: maker
content: Ford Instrument Company
notes: label: Description
content: This small round device includes a steel ring, an eccentric fiberboard disc with a notch in it, another steel ring, a shaft and two short springs, and another steel ring with three holes and two notches. A hole passes through the rings, disc, and shaft. The first ring is marked: 209628 16. It also is marked in black: item 1 [in fact the object matches item 11 on the list – it seems likely that part of the mark has been erased]. The final ring is marked on the side: A240.
label: Description
content: Ford Instrument Company built devices like this one a part of mechanisms that carried out calculations (analog computing devices). According to the accession file, this is a “holding friction.” It was used on “various Range Keepers and Computers” “to prevent data from backing out of a gearing line.”
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: 1982.0751.10
label: catalog number
content: 1982.0751.10
label: accession number
content: 1982.0751
objectType: label: Object Name
content: analog computing component
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: iron, aluminum (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 1.7 cm x 3.6 cm x 3.6 cm; 21/32 in x 1 13/32 in x 1 13/32 in