Analog Computing Component - Intermittent Drive
date: label: date made
content: ca 1920-1955
name: label: maker
content: Ford Instrument Company
notes: label: Description
content: This component has an aluminum frame and various steel parts. Three shafts running across the frame carry a varied of gears and rings. A deteriorating plastic label reads: #46 INTERMITTENT (/) DRIVE. A number on the side reads: 209258 7.
label: Description
content: According to the accession file, this unit was used to temporarily disconnect units that did not have the complete range of the Ford Instrument Company range keeper or computer and to reconnect the unit when data values reached the range of the disconnected unit.
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: 1982.0751.23
label: catalog number
content: 1982.0751.23
label: accession number
content: 1982.0751
objectType: label: Object Name
content: analog computing component
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: steel, aluminum, brass (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 8.8 cm x 8.6 cm x 8.6 cm; 3 15/32 in x 3 3/8 in x 3 3/8 in