1955 Chicago machine tool show...the dawn of NC

D

D. Thomas

Guest

• Apr 22, 2002

• #1

Before my time, but it has stuck me as a nice fantasy to go back in time and attend that show. As you'd see scads of interesting manual machines and the very first standard NC machines offered for sale. Attending the show in 1965 would have it's charms too.

Of course even more fasinating would be to attend a machine tool show of about 1875 but I figure Mr. Fusion on the Delorean might start acting up if I go back *that* much !

 

K

Kurt Westfall

Stainless

Joined

Oct 14, 2001

Location

Montrose Iowa

• Apr 27, 2002

• #2

AHHH 1955. The good old days! Well old anyway. Eke was prez. McCharty was on a witch hunt, $.50 would get you sick as a dog on candy, there was a bounty on fox, crows, and groundhogs, crewcuts were in style, and the minne skirt was not, that I do miss. No internet, pc's, or color TV. Could send a post card for $.01, see a move for around $.25, about a hours pay more or less. Come to think about it things cost just as much then as now, only then you worked harder for what you got.

 

J

John Stevenson

Stainless

Joined

Apr 30, 2001

Location

Nottingham, England

• Apr 27, 2002

• #3

Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.

John S.

 

K

Kurt Westfall

Stainless

Joined

Oct 14, 2001

Location

Montrose Iowa

• Apr 27, 2002

• #4

Nor is my spelling, it's Ike!! I remember a lot of kids going into punch card programing in the 60's, by the mid 70's most were out of work around here.

 

Spin Doctor

Hot Rolled

Joined

Nov 19, 2002

Location

SE WI

• Nov 28, 2002

• #5

Does anybody out there realize that the dawn of progamable machine opperation was in the late eighteenth century. Punched slats of wood were used to control the opperation of Jaquard looms. The same idea was used on the riveting machinery for the Great Eastern, I.K.Brunnel's mid-19th century super ship.

 

D

D. Thomas

Guest

• Nov 29, 2002

• #6

I suspect many folks here are well aware of that, but I was referring to control by numbers directly electronically. The birth of which was due to work by John Parsons in 1948, on a machine to produce integral stiffened skins for Lockheed. His work lead to further research at MIT, where they converted a huge Cincinnati Hydrotel mill to automation via using vacuum tube electronics and a tape reader. The MIT machine became the prototype for the developments that followed.

 

F

FLPR

Plastic

Joined

Jun 13, 2002

Location

Boise, ID. USA

• Nov 29, 2002

• #7

Anybody looked into the early CNC work done at Lawrence Radiation Lab? They also did some pioneering work in the field but it was all classified at the time. I don't know if the classification was ever dropped. Fred

 

D

D. Thomas

Guest

• Nov 30, 2002

• #8

Do you literaly mean CNC and not NC ? The difference being until about 1978 most NC machines had no memory and relied totally on punched tapes for program retention. So sometime about 1978 would be the "dawn of CNC"

 

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NatetheGreat

Plastic

Joined

Nov 22, 2002

• Nov 30, 2002

• #9

Wasn't John Parsons the rocket experimenting guy?

Nate

[This message has been edited by NatetheGreat (edited 12-29-2002).]

 

D

D. Thomas

Guest

• Dec 1, 2002

• #10

I was throwing away some old magazines today and ran across the August 2001 issue of Manufacturing Engineering which featured John Parsons on the cover with the title "Father of the Second Industrial Revolution". Article is an interview with Mr. Parsons...very interesting. For net acess to article try here-

http://www.sme.org/cgi-bin/get-mag.pl?&&01aum042&000007&2001/01aum042&ARTME&SME&