[time-nuts] Interesting Patent

Lee Horton leewhorton at comcast.net
Tue May 16 14:15:06 EDT 2006


I worked on a Runway Visibility Computer in 1965 that was composed of a 
whole box of  transistor flip-flop counters using 2N404 transistors and 
lights for status.  The Runway visual Range was displayed on a "digital" 
readout consisting of drums with numbers painted on them and positioned with 
stepping motors.  These counters were binary but "cheated" with feedback to 
form base 8, and base 10 counters.  I will spare you the rest of the details 
on this machine.

Lee

Not as dramatic a find as the 1946 patent, but a piece of history.
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Scott Newell" <newell at cei.net>
To: "Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement" 
<time-nuts at febo.com>
Sent: Tuesday, May 16, 2006 1:30 PM
Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Interesting Patent


> At 11:20 AM 5/16/2006 , Brooke Clarke wrote:
>>Hi:
>>
>>I came across a 1946 patent for a vacuum tube based counter circuit that
>>will divide 60 Hz down to 1 Hz.  It's interesting in that there's a
>>discussion about the advantage of using binary instead of base 10 and
>>also about using feedback to change the scale of the counter from 64 to
>>60 (or 50).  See:
>
> Nice find.  I find it easier to enter the patent number (2410156) into the
> free service at http://www.pat2pdf.org/ and download a single pdf.
>
>
> -- 
> newell  N5TNL
>
>
>
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