Analog Computing Component - Flat Ballistic Cam
date: label: date made
content: ca 1930-1945
name: label: maker
content: Ford Instrument Company
notes: label: Description
content: In the analog computing devices built by Ford Instrument Company, two-dimensional cams like this one were used to generate functions of one variable. The input is represented by the angle of rotation of the cam. The output is the motion of a follower along the working surface of the cam. In this particular cam, the outer edge of the cam serves as the working surface, so that the radius of the cam is the output.
label: Description
content: According to the accession file, this cam was used on the U.S. Navy's Mark VIII Range Keeper. Documentation on this device dates from 1932 until at least 1945, suggesting the date of the object.
label: Description
content: References:
label: Description
content: On cams, see Audio Products, Inc., “<I>Basic Mechanisms in Fire Control Computers: Shafts, Gears, . . </I>., 1953. This is available online at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vG0G95SpdBE.
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: 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: 1982.0751.14
label: catalog number
content: 1982.0751.14
label: accession number
content: 1982.0751
objectType: label: Object Name
content: analog computing component
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: overall: .6 cm x 16 cm x 11.2 cm; 1/4 in x 6 5/16 in x 4 13/32 in