Part 14

By referring to the drawings, it will be noted that the form of the front of the casing differs from the machine. Other drawings of the patent, not shown here, disclose features of still later invention than were in the machine of the photo reproduction. But it is with the printing device that we are now interested, and it was in this patent that it was first shown in the form used in the first marketed machine referred to.

The type sector marked 81 is like that of the first patent, except that it is provided with the ciphers as well as the nine digits.

The cipher type are always presented for printing when the sectors are resting at normal. Thus, if an impression can be made without depressing the keys in that order, a cipher will be printed, as will be shown later.

Back of the paper and pivoted to the rod 97, are a series of printing hammers 87, one for each type sector.

The hammers are operated by the spring 88, and are shown retained against the tension of their springs by the trigger latches 89.

These trigger latches are pivoted on the fixed shaft 171ᵃ, and actuated by the springs 92 to cause their engagement with the notch 90 of the printing hammers.

Each of the trigger latches are provided with a laterally extending lug 93, formed on their lower arm, and each lug overlaps the back of the lower arm of the adjacent trigger latch to the right of it, so that if any trigger latch should be operated so as to extricate it from the notch 50 of its printing hammer, its overlapping lug 93, would cause a like action of the trigger latch to the right of that, and so on; thus releasing all the trigger latches to the right of the latch originally released. Such releasing, of course, allowed the printing-hammers 87, to spring forward in all the orders so affected.

The long-stop actuating lever marked 16, corresponds with the lever G of the Felt key-driven calculator shown in a preceding chapter, and performs the same function as the rock bars L of the first Felt recorder patent. These stop levers 16 are pivoted at 17, and are provided with rear arms 86, extending upward with their ends opposite the lateral extending lug 93, of the trigger latch, which corresponds to the order of keys which the lever 16 serves.

In the rear upwardly-extending end of each of these levers 16, an adjusting screw 91, is provided as a tappet for tripping the trigger latch corresponding to its order.

From the above-described combination of mechanism, it may be seen that if a key in any order is depressed, it will, as it comes in contact with the stop lever 16, not only cause the adding mechanism to be stopped through the stop 19, but it will also, through its rear arm 86, cause the trigger latch of its order to trip, and likewise all the trigger latches and printing-hammers to the right, thus printing the figure presented on the printing sector in the order in which the key was operated and the ciphers in the orders to the right in case the keys in the order to the right have not previously been operated.

The individual presentation of the type figures upon key depression, except for the ciphers which were normally presented for printing, required that in striking the keys, to give correct recording of the items, the operation must be from right to left. That is, for example, if the item to be added was $740.85, the operator would depress the (5) key in the units cents column, the (8) key in the tens of cents column; the cipher in the units dollars column would be omitted, the (4) key in the tens of dollars, and the (7) key in the hundreds of dollars column would be struck.

The printing hammers were provided with means for resetting after being tripped in the recording action. This means is connected with the paper shift-lever, so that as the paper was shifted or fed upward, ready for recording the next item, the printing-hammers were all reset and latched on their respective trigger latches, ready for a new item.

Fixed to the shaft 97, on which the printing-hammers are pivoted, is a bail, marked 98, part of which is shown in the drawing, the horizontal bar of which normally lies under and out of the way of the hammers as they plunge forward in printing. And attached to the right-hand end of the shaft 97, is a crank arm connected by a link to the paper-shift hand-lever, which may be seen on the right in the photo reproduction of the machine. This connection is arranged so that depressing the lever causes the shaft 97 to rock the bail 98 rearward, thus picking up any tripped printing-hammers and relatching them.

The totals had to be printed, as in the first-described Felt recorder, by depressing a key corresponding in value to the figure showing on the wheel in each order.

The principle involved in the individual hammer-blow, combined with the ordinal type sector for recording in a recording-adder was new, and was the feature that has made the adding-recording machine of today possible, as is well in evidence by the presence of this combination in all the recorders that have been made by the successful manufacturers of listing or recording-adding and calculating machines. Some manufacturers have substituted a vertical moving type bar for the pivoted sector, but the scheme is the same, as the purpose is to get the arrangement of the type in columnar order, and does not change the fundamental features of the combination which furnished the practical means for the individual type impression.

THE FELT TABULATOR

The next feature in the Art, that has served in the make-up of the up-to-date recorders, was the wide paper-carriage. This feature will probably be recognized by many as a means supplied for the recording of columns of items in series on sheet-paper.

As will be noted, roll-paper in ribbon form had been used in all the previously illustrated and described recorders. While the Ludlum patent shows a carriage, it had no capacity for handling more than a single column of numerical items. The carriage in the Ludlum machine was a feature necessary to the typewriter construction and offered no solution to the feature of tabulating.

The first disclosure of the wide carriage feature for tabulating was in a machine made by D. E. Felt in 1889, which he exhibited to the U. S. Census Bureau at Washington, D. C., in 1890. The machine was also exhibited at the World’s Fair in Chicago, in 1893, along with other products in this line of the Felt & Tarrant Mfg. Co. A photo reproduction of this machine is shown on opposite page.

The machine was left at the Census Bureau, where it was used for several weeks, and was very much liked. Felt made a contract to furnish ten machines of this type, and the machine was recommended for purchase by G. K. Holmes, Special Agent of the Census Bureau, but like many other government department requisitions, the purchase order was never issued.

Although this feature is now found in all first-class recording-adders, the recording machine Art was too new in 1890 for the new feature to be appreciated, and was not pushed, as there seemed to be no demand for the wide carriage then. On this account Felt delayed applying for a patent on his invention until 1899.

In 1904 a license under the patent was granted the Burroughs Adding Machine Co., but soon after the granting of the license another manufacturer of recording-adders brought out a machine with a wide carriage, which was the start of a series of long-drawn-out infringement suits. The fact that Felt had delayed taking out his patent formed the grounds on which the Court finally decided that Felt, from lack of diligence in applying for a patent, had abandoned his invention, which made it public property.

The tags which may be seen tied to the carriage of the machine are the official tags used to identify it as a court exhibit during the long term of years the suits were pending in litigation.

Outside of the tabulating scheme, the machine was in other respects the same as the recorder just described as the roll-paper “Comptograph.”

The paper, as may be noted, is held in a shiftable carriage and is operated by two levers, one to feed the paper vertically and reset the printing-hammers, while the other moved the carriage laterally for the spacing of the columns of items or the cross-printing when desired. Besides the lever action for shifting and paper-feeding, means were provided on the right-hand end of the carriage for performing these functions; one of these is the thumb knob which served to feed the sheet of paper into the rolls; the other is a small lever which allows the operator to shift the carriage by hand independent of the carriage shift-lever.

THE THIRD FELT RECORDER

While the first lot of recording-adders manufactured by Felt were wholly practical, as was well proved by the statements of those who purchased them, it is easy to pick out features in their make-up that today, when compared with the new highly-developed Art, would seem to make them impractical.

The necessity of operating from right to left and the necessity of printing the totals by key depression were features that, in view of there being nothing better in those days, did not seem objectionable to those who used them. They were features, however, that Felt overcame and eliminated in the next lot of machines manufactured and placed on the market in 1890.