Analog Computing Component - Mark I Time of Flight Clock
date: label: date made
content: ca 1920
name: label: maker
content: Ford Instrument Company
notes: label: Description
content: The New York-born, Cornell-educated mechanical engineer Hannibal Ford resigned as chief engineer at the Sperry Gyroscope Company in 1915 to from his own company, Ford Marine Appliance Company (from 1916, Ford Instrument Company). The firm developed fire control systems for the U.S. Navy. This is part of its first product, the Range Keeper Mark I, an instrument used by the Navy from 1917. This time of flight clock for the Mark I was a portable instrument used by a gunnery officer to check the accuracy of gunfire by observing small splashes. Ford filed a patent for the instrument in 1918 and received it in 1920. Detailed drawings are with the patent.
label: Description
content: The object has a metal frame painted black with four rings extending from the sides. It has a STOP (/) RUN dial at the top, and an ALARM (/) SILENT setting on the left. A disc at the center has a scale on the rim that runs from 0 to 20.
label: Description
content: A tag on the side reads: FORD INSTRUMENT CO., INC. (/) NEW YORK (/) TIME OF FLIGHT CLOCK (/) U.S. NAVY – BUREAU OF ORDNANCE (/) MARK I MOD. (/) No. 283 INSPECTOR (/) PATENTS APPLIED FOR.
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: Hannibal C. Ford, “Time of Flight Clock,” U.S. Patent 1,355,829, October 19, 1920.
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: 1982.0751.29
label: catalog number
content: 1982.0751.29
label: accession number
content: 1982.0751
objectType: label: Object Name
content: analog computing component
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: metal (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 9.2 cm x 16.5 cm x 16.5 cm; 3 5/8 in x 6 1/2 in x 6 1/2 in