When I saw Joyce Brite's report on "The Victorian Internet" and the
examples she gave, I couldn't resist adding the following bits of data
from the history of technology.

I am on a technical assessment panel for the patent department at Xerox
Corp.  Every year our panel (one of about 20 subjects) goes through
dozens of patent proposals to decide which ideas the company will
patent.  I invariably find 2 or 3 which already are patented in some
form on some mechanical musical instrument.

My favorite was one which described a method of keeping an imaging belt
accurately positioned around the drums that drive it (like tracking a
belt sander).  It involved a hole in the belt housing near the edge of
the belt.  The belt normally covered 1/2 of the hole.  When the belt
moved over a little so it covered more than 1/2 the hole, a small
bellows was activated which would tip the rollers in such a way that
the belt would move back.  If it went too far back, a spring would
resist it and tip the roller the other way.  Sound familiar?!

My favorite player piano technological coup is the expression bellows
on an expression piano.  Four bellows are arranged in series so that
the amount they collapse is effectively added.  The bellows are spaced
(roughly) 1/8th", 1/4", 1/2" and 1" apart when they are open.  When
they collapse, individually or in groups, they cause a motion in the
loudness/expression control that is the sum of the bellows that
collapse.  So if the first and third collapse, the motion is 1/8+1/2=
5/8th".  There are 16 possible combinations; zero through 2 inches
by 1/8th of an inch.  1  0  1  0   Binary-coded-decimal, invented
and applied to a process controller 100 years ago.

Back to the future.
Craig Smith

 [ IBM was awarded a patent in the 1970s on "Low Pressure Fluidic
 [ Logic", which was simply the pouch-logic devices used in the
 [ model B Ampico.  I've wondered since then just how the U.S. Patent
 [ Office could be so lax in their research of "prior art"!
 [ -- Robbie