Top (device)

“ Although I have become more teasing and agreeable, he says no more to me about the matter, and cannot make up his mind to try a new direct attack,—not even the classic device of a button to be sewed on a pair of pantaloons. A clumsy device, but one that does not often fail of its effect. ”

“ It is very light and will not be in your way. On this dial are points marked 'up' and 'down' as well as a perfect compass. When you desire to rise into the air set the indicator to the word 'up,' using a finger of your right hand to turn it. When you have risen as high as you wish, set the indicator to the point of the compass you want to follow and you will be carried by the proper electric force in that direction. To descend, set the indicator to the word 'down.' Do you understand?"
"Perfectly!" cried Rob, taking the machine from the Demon with unfeigned delight. ”

“ He snapped over a filament-controlling toggle switch set into the long bench, and the beautiful set became instantly alive, transformed from a mechanically perfect but inanimate instrument of wood and wire to a living, glowing thing—a Twentieth Century horn of plenty, taking in at one end invisible and inaudible frequencies of electricity and releasing them as man-controlled music and speech. ”

“ Small machines using a few electronic tubes—much like a radio set, for example—and containing spools of magnetic wire or magnetic tape will doubtless be available to us. We shall be able to use them to keep addresses and telephone numbers, to figure out the income tax we should pay, to help us keep accounts and make ends meet, to remember many things we need to know, and perhaps even to give us more information. For there are a great many things that all of us could do much better if we could only apply what the wisest of us knows. ”

“ An ordinary talking machine is employed, without any modification beyond the addition of a small box with a governing dial, and a similar dial in the pictures upon the screen. The dial in each instance is fitted with a revolving hand, similar to that of a clock, and all that the operator is called upon to do is to keep the respective hands in relative positions by the manipulation of the projector. ”

“ Neither the voice nor the ear is adapted to the task. But the hand fashions and presents the telephone, and the conversation proceeds even in a whisper. It will be said that the mind devises the telescope, the microscope, and the telephone. True, but their construction would be impossible without the hand. And is it at all probable that the mind would have devised these admirable instruments if man had been made without hands? ”

“ Now while all of the above devices have been invented and patented the point is that every one of them has a bug, that is a flaw in it somewhere; by which I mean that in each and every case, except the toys and amusements, the device is too hard to work, costs too much, takes too much time, is too troublesome, is too poorly made or is not as comfortable as the old-fashioned thing. ”

“ An expert will throw his top from him, and by the action of the string as it unwinds draw it back so that it is caught in his hand—of course, without it having touched the ground. An unopened fan is then taken in the other hand, and the top is placed upon one of its sides and spun along it. ”

“ Baker, 4 Fisher's Patent Cases, 409: "When, in mechanics, one device does a particular thing, or accomplishes a particular result, every other device known and used in mechanics, which skillful and experienced workmen know will produce the same result, or do the same particular thing, is a known mechanical substitute for the first device mentioned for doing the same thing, or accomplishing the same result. ”

“ Mr. Tedder offered the principal the top of a desk in the front row. "Now, what did you expect to see when you came in here?"
"The apparatus of a physics laboratory—all those gears and coils and tubes and ... things," Mr. Coar vaguely enumerated. "Certainly not a...." The principal sat heavily on the desk top, bulge-eyed. On the marble top of the demonstration bench was a Goldberg-esque network of machinery, a perfect reproduction of the principal's uncertain notions concerning scientific gadgetry. ”

“ The very same principle acts on the boys’ Tops, and is shown in a really remarkable manner by the professional Japanese top-spinners, who will place several tops upon each other, as shown in the illustration, and make them sway backwards and forwards in the most extraordinary manner, sometimes being all upright, and sometimes leaning almost at right angles to each other. ”

“ A system of tubes, orifices, and balls makes a device that assumes one position upon the application of pneumatic force, and the other upon a successive application, similar to the electronic flip-flop. ”

“ If we are to admire the telegraph or the telephone, we shall not be satisfied with considering the exterior forms, the network of wires, the keys, the receivers; we shall be impressed rather by the ideal beauty, by the idea of a vibrating spark leaping over countries and whole continents. A machine is not wonderful on, account of its rattling, rusty, iron framework, but [Pg 85] by the idea, deep-seated in its body, which is the principle of its magical activity. ”

“ On applying the ear to a telephone joined into a circuit working in such an office, a curious sound is heard, comparable most nearly to the sound of a pot boiling. But the practised ear could soon separate the boiling into distinct sounds. There was one masterful Morse instrument—probably on the wire lying nearest the one on which we were joined up—whose peremptory 'click, cli-i-i-ck, click,' representing 'dot, dash, dot' on the printed slip we read from, could be heard over all. ”

“ He had said little about it, but from his hints I gathered that he thought the mysterious force he was struggling against might do something to sweep him and his machine out of the way. He spent hours alone in the little room, with the apparatus that registered new force in the ether, manipulating his switches and dials, with the phones on his ears, and his eyes fixed on the color screen, listening and watching intently—for what?
There was no man on earth with enough knowledge of science to follow him. ”

“ And the mystery of the telephone grows no less the more one studies it. You speak against a tiny disc of sheet-iron, and the disc trembles. It has millions and millions of varieties of trembles, as many as there are sounds in the universe. A piece of copper wire, connected with an electric battery, stretches from the disc against which you have spoken to another disc [Pg 232] miles and miles away. The tremble of your disc sends an electric thrill along the wire to that other disc and makes it tremble exactly as yours did. ”

“ In order to make sure that the current from the upper support of tin should reach the curved lever, [17] another strip of platinum foil was soldered on the side of the former, and rested lightly against the end of the wire-axis, as shown in magnified detail in Fig. 6. If now any words or sounds of any kind were uttered in front of the ear the membrane was thereby set into vibrations, as in the human ear. The little curved lever took up these motions precisely as the “hammer”-bone of the human ear does; and, like the “hammer”-bone, transferred them to that with which it was in contact. ”

“ Thus, for instance, the impact caused by putting a key down should have the effect of driving a small weight upwards in the direction of a metal bar, the distance of which can be adjusted. Another bar, at a lower level, is also approached by a second weight, and the perfect degree of evenness in the touch is indicated by the fact [Pg 258] that the lower bar should be made to emit a faint sound with every note, but the higher one not at all. The closer the bars the more difficult is the exercise, and remarkable evenness of touch can be acquired by a progressive training with such an instrument. ”

“ After the knife has made the complete journey over the surface, a device attached to the machine pushes the object from the fork so that a new one may be put in its place. Parers are quite complicated devices, but they have been perfected so that they are not clumsy, and some can core apples, stone peaches and slice the fruit. ”

“ It is an accessible device, consisting of a light frame, covered with burlap, with conveniently arranged pockets and other useful features. It is of a convenient height to be lifted from place to place with a little effort; or it may be put on casters and rolled around. Its position near the tired woman’s chair will cause her to feel an eternal warmth toward the designer, for she will find somewhere on its hooks, shelf, or in its pockets the very thing needed when with a sigh of relief she has taken her seat. ”

“ All the other wonderful inventions of the human brain sink pretty nearly into commonplaces contrasted with this awful mechanical miracle. Telephones, telegraphs, locomotives, cotton-gins, sewing- machines, Babbage calculators, jacquard looms, perfecting presses, all mere toys, simplicities! The Paige Compositor marches alone and far in the land of human inventions.
In one paragraph of Orion's letter he refers to the machine as a "cunning devil, knowing more than any man that ever lived." ”

“ Since two years ago I succeeded in effecting the possibility of the reproduction of tones by the galvanic current, and in setting up a convenient apparatus therefor, the circumstance has found such a recognition from the most celebrated men of science, and so many calls to action have come to me, that I have since striven to improve my originally very incomplete apparatus, so that the experiments might thereby become accessible to others. ”

“ Instead of the unwieldy and formidable looking apparatus of a short time ago, experimenters are now vying with each other in making small or novel equipment. Portable sets of all sorts are being fashioned, from one which will go into an ordinary suitcase, to one so small it will easily slip into a Brownie camera. ”

“ As the nerves reaching from your finger-tips, from your ears, your eyes, and every portion of your body come to a focus in your brain and carry information to it about the things you taste, see, hear, feel, and smell, so the wires of a telephone system come together at the central station. And as it is necessary for your right hand to communicate with your left through your brain, so it is necessary for one telephone subscriber to connect through the central station with another subscriber. ”

“ Now we connect the axis C with a train of wheel-work, something like that in a clock, and this wheel-work moves the pointers on the dials in front, so that as the gas in passing in and out of the chambers turns the drum on the axis, it turns the dial pointers also.
“The right hand dial marks up to one hundred. While its pointer is passing completely around once, the pointer on the next dial (which marks up to one thousand) is moving a short space and preserving the record of that one hundred; and then the first pointer begins over again. ”

“ Thus, “when the cavities above and below the iron disc of an ordinary telephone are filled with wadding, the instrument will transmit and speak with undiminished clearness. On placing a finger on the iron disc opposite the magnet, the instrument will transmit and speak distinctly, only ceasing to act when sufficient pressure is applied to bring plate and magnet into contact. Connecting the centre of the disc by means of a short thread with an extremely sensitive membrane, no sound is given out by the latter when a message is transmitted. ”

“ The top is then thrown either underhand or overhand and the string jerked back while it is still in the air. The object is to knock over someone else’s top which is already spinning. Tops are spun at and just after sowing time. ”

“ Lastly, the very delicacy of the essential parts, the conducting strips of metal which lay lightly in contact against one another, militated against a uniformity of success when tried with different voices, some of which were too low to produce any effect, others so loud as to rattle the delicate contact-pieces in a manner fatal to the attainment of the desired result. ”

“ The pieces of apparatus I conceived were to me absolutely real and tangible in every detail, even to the minute marks and signs of wear. I delighted in imagining the motors constantly running, for in this way they presented to mind's eye a more fascinating sight. When natural inclination develops into a passionate desire, one advances towards his goal in seven-league boots. ”

“ Batteries, commutators, multipliers, switches, wires innumerable control those nimble fingers, the machinery of which may be set in motion as automatically as in a pianola, the player all the time chatting as if he had nothing to do in controlling the apparatus—habit again, the gradual acquisition of power by long practice and at the expense of many mistakes. ”

“ In another direction the eagerness with which every advance in the telephone is hailed by the people may well offer an augury of rapid progress in the immediate future. In this department invention will aim just as much at simplification as at elaboration; and some of the pieces of domestic [Pg 217] electrical apparatus universally used during the twentieth century will be astonishingly cheap. ”

“ Before the description of the necessary apparatus is followed out, it might be necessary, however, to go back to the point how our ear perceives the vibrations of a given tone, and the total vibrations of all the tones simultaneously acting upon it; because by this means will be determined the various requisite conditions which must be fulfilled by the transmitting and receiving apparatus for the solution of the problem that has been set.
Let us consider first the processes which take place in order that a single tone should be perceived by the human ear ”