Analog Computing Component - S Cam
date: label: date made
content: ca 1940
name: label: maker
content: Ford Instrument Company
notes: label: Description
content: This flat aluminum cam is in the shape of a highly irregular heptagon, An S-shaped space about 1 cm. wide is cut out of it, as well as two holes with threads (as on a screw assembly) and three without threads. The holes without threads are labeled ¼, 3/16, and 7/16 – these numbers represent the diameters of the holes in inches. Another mark reads: item 16.
label: Description
content: Ford Instrument Company designed and produced cams like this one to be part of mechanisms that carried out calculations (analog computing devices). According the accession file, this cam was “Probably from the MK 32 Gun Director.” This gun director was in use during World War II, hence the rough date assigned to the object.
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: 1982.0751.13
label: catalog number
content: 1982.0751.13
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: .3 cm x 11.6 cm x 6 cm; 1/8 in x 4 9/16 in x 2 3/8 in