Analog Computing Component - Time of Flight Groove Cam and Gear
date: label: date made
content: ca 1943
name: label: maker
content: Ford Instrument Company
notes: label: Description
content: This aluminum gear has 170 teeth around the outside. A groove in one side creates a cam – the width of the groove is .9 cm. (3/8”). There also are three holes in the cam, two inside the cam groove and one outside. A mark on the gear inside the cam gear reads: 19 (/) 1150298. A mark outside the cam groove reads: TIME OF FLIGHT 8 INCH 55 CAL. (/) 335 LB. A.P. PROJ. (/) 2425 F.S.I.V. O.D. Another mark outside the cam groove reads: 260 LB. H. C. PROJ. (/) 2150 F.S.I.V. O.P. 1334. A mark in black inside the groove reads: item 30 170 teeth.
label: Description
content: Ford Instrument Company designed and produced cam gears like this one to be part of mechanisms that carried out calculations (analog computing devices). According the accession file, this object is a “Time of Flight Groove Cam & Gear” It was used on Computer Mark 3.
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: 1982.0751.16
label: catalog number
content: 1982.0751.16
label: accession number
content: 1982.0751
objectType: label: Object Name
content: analog computing component
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: overall: .7 cm x 13.7 cm x 13.7 cm; 9/32 in x 5 13/32 in x 5 13/32 in