US2705109A - Campos - Google Patents

Description

F. CAMPOS March 29, 1955 CALCULATING MACHINE KEY-BOARD AND DIFFERENTIAL ACTUATORS 4 Shets-Sheet 1 Original Filed Feb. 19, 1951 s s QMM W Z R m w W0 n I C F. cAMPos CALCULATING MACHINE KEY-BOARD AND DIFFERENTIAL ACTUATORS Filed Feb. 19, 1951 4 Sheets-Sheet 2 Original INVENTOR. /T 4/vc/5ca (kw as: Br

QTTORNEY I March 29, 1955 F. CAMPOS 2,705,109

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ATTORNEYS.

March 29, 1955 F. CAMPOS 2,705,109 CALCULATING MACHINE KEY-BOARD AND DIFFERENTIAL ACTUATORS Original Filed Feb. 19, 1951 4 Sheets-Sheet 4 United States Patent CALCULATING MACHINE KEY-BOARD AND DIFFERENTIAL ACTUATORS Francisco Campos, Paris, France, assignor to Societe Anonyme dite: Societe des Brevets Logabax, Paris, France, a corporation of France Original application February 19, 1951, Serial No. 211,594. Divided and this application February 19, 1951, Serial No. 211,595

Claims priority, application France February 12, 1951 1 Claim. (Cl. 235-145) The increasing complexity of economic problems in administrative work requires the use of highly improved calculating machines in order to accomplish statistics, accounting operations and the like.

The present invention concerns an improvement 1n mechanical elements in calculating machines presenting a great number of counters which are designed for accounting and statistical analysis according to the machine described in U. S. Patent No. 2,562,172 dated July 31, 1951. This machine is essentially characterized in that it comprises a certain number of counting units respectively representing an account, each of which is formed of a frame composed of parallel rods or slides which are shiftable in a longitudinal direction and are provided, lengthwise, with catches or teeth. The number of said teeth is equal to the number of units, less one, of the adopted basis of numeration, said slides forming the calculating elements. Each frame bearing such rods or slides in a number equal to the number of numeration orders foreseen for the calculations to be accomplished. Mechanical means cooperating with the catches or teeth of said rods or slides, in order that one or more rods or slides in one or more counting units may be automatically moved lengthwise in one direction or the other, under the action of an electrical or any other motor and under the control of a key-board comprising groups of keys corresponding to the various counting units and groups of calculating keys, said movements being proportional to the numbers represented by the calculating keys which are acted upon by the operator. Mechanical means are further provided in connection with said rods or slides in order that the recording or printing of the data of the operations and their results be insured.

In my co-pending patent application Ser. No. 211,594, filed February 19, 1951, I have described various improvements in such machine, especially referring to the tens transfer mechanism. The present application, which is a division of my said co-pending application, relates more particularly to a key-board arrangement for the control of the calculation slides in machine of the considered type.

In a machine of the said type, the keys cannot be depressed for a succeeding calculation while the machine is performing the cycle for the preceding operation.

The present invention, on the contrary, provides a device whereby the keys of the keyboard may be depressed even before the cycle of the preceding operation is terminated, thus considerably increasing the registering speed of the machine.

The device according to the invention substantially consists in a vertical bar parallel to the key stem of each key in the keyboard and connected to said stem, against which it may slide, by means of a spring, said vertical bar being itself connected to the frame of the machine by means of a spring, and the lower end of said vertical bar terminating with a blunted angle in the shape of a sloped plane, in order that after a key stem is depressed to cooperate with a tooth on a sliding stop bar of the machine and thereby limit the sliding of said stop bar, it is possible to depress another key stem driving a succeeding movement.

Said stop bar will not be prevented from returning back, since the corresponding teeth of said stop bar will cooperate with the sloped plane at the lower part of sald 2,705,109 Patented Mar. 29, 1955 Fig. 3 is a corresponding lateral view of a key. Fig. 4 is a rear elevational view of one row of keys in the keyboard.

Fig. 5 is a plan view, from above, of the complete machine shown at Figure l.

The machine shown at Fig. 1 is described in detail in rznly1 5agbiave mentioned co-pending application Ser. No.

The keyboard on the right hand side of said machine (Fig. 5) comprises four rows of nine key caps 114 (Figs. 1 and 5) indicated by reference numerals 1141, 1142, 1143, 1144, 1145, 1146, 1141, 114a, 1149, are mounted on the upper part of rods 154 sliding inside of frames 153, one frame being provided for each numeration order (Figs. 1, 2, 3, and 4). Vertical sliding bars 155 are mounted parallel to stems 154 and are each provided with a stud 156, said stud passing through a slot in the adjacent stem 154 and serving as a hooking point for a spring 157 hooked, at its other end, upon another stud 158 fast with said adjacent stem 154. Alongside each key stem, a spring 159 is hooked, at one of its ends, on to frame 153 and, at its other end, on to a stud 160, which is also fast with rod 154.

Immediately beneath each row of key caps 114 a stop bar 113 is slidably mounted in guides 190. A finger 134 protrudes laterally of the rear end of each bar 113, which finger engages a groove provided in a vertical extension .133 of a driving bar 103 which lies immediately beneath the considered bar 113. The upper side of each bar 113 is provided with a series of teeth adapted to cooperate with the vertical bars 155 of the key caps 114 of the corresponding row of keys when said keys are depressed and bar 133 moves towards the back of the machine.

When the operator depresses a key caps 114, which is then held downwards as will be explained hereafter, stem 154 fast with said key follows the downward movement and spring 157 will also drive the corresponding vertical bar 155 downwards. When the corresponding driving bar 103 moves towards the back of the machine under the action of spring 135 attached thereto, as explained in my co-pending application Ser. No. 211,594, the corresponding stop bar 113, which is made fast with said bar 103 by means of the extension 133 thereof and the finger 134, also moves in the same direction but is stopped in said movement by abutment of a tooth of said bar 113 with said vertical bar of the depressed key cap 114. While the machine operates its cycle, and during the rotation of shaft 39 and before stop bars 113 have returned to their extreme position towards the front of the machine, the operator may depress another key. Nothing will prevent said stop bars 113 from returning, since the teeth of corresponding stop bar 113, which must pass under the previously depressed vertical bar 155, will act upon the bevelled, lower end 161 of said vertical bar 155 which will then be freely pushed upwards against the action of spring 157.

As soon as the tooth has gone by and stop bars 113 have been driven by rollers 137 to their extreme position the vertical bar 155 will come down again and will therefore again be ready to play their normal part of a stop for the next operation.

On the vertical sides of the keyboard frames 153 are rotatively mounted flaps 336 to maintain stems 154 in a downward position by cooperating with inclined notches 337, which are provided in said stems. A cross-bar 338 slidably mounted across frames 153 is provided with large notches (Fig. 2) which cooperate withthe flaps 336 for causing said flaps to tilt after each recording in order to release all rods 154 which have been depressed by the operator. Transverse movement of bar 338 is caused by cams and rods notrepresented in the drawings. Other flaps 339 are mounted in the same way as flaps 336 and each carries a stud 340 adapted to cooperate with a zero finger 178 capable of rocking on a trunnion fixed onto the corresponding frame 153. When a stem 154 is depressed, flap 339 which corresponds to said stem tilts over, thereby driving and tilting the corresponding zero finger 178. It should be remarked that if the said zero fingers 178 are not tilted, said fingers lock all stop bars 113 by engaging zero teeth 179 (Fig. 1) carried by said stop bars.

A bar 341 (Figs. 2 and 3) is fixed to the vertical sides of frame 153 and has for its object to limit upward and downward movement of stems 154.

What I claim is:

In a calculating machine comprising calculating members controlled by a plurality of longitudinally movable, parallel bars slidably mounted in fixed guides and having an upper side provided with protruding teeth, a key-board comprising frames extending over and along each of said movable control bars, a row of key stems slidably arranged in each of said frames, substantially perpendicularly to the movable bar corresponding thereto, and having an upper end protruding above the corresponding frame, a key top on each of said key stems, a spring member adapted to pull each of said key stems upwards in said corresponding frame, a lateral notch in each key stem, a rotatable locking flap mounted in each frame, extending perpendicularly to all the key stems in said frame, and adapted to engage the notches in said key stems for locking said stems in depressed position, means for pivoting simultaneously the locking flaps in all the frames, whereby the said flaps which have engaged notches in key stems are disengaged from said notches, vertical bars slidably mounted in said frames, one vertical bar being mounted along each key stem, a lateral finger on each of said vertical bars, extending through a slot in the adjacent key stem and connected to said adjacent key stem by a resilient member, each of said vertical bars having a bevelled lower edge protruding beneath the corresponding frame and adapted to cooperate with the teeth in the corresponding movable control bar in order to stop said bar when said bar moves in one direction and to be raised by the teeth in said bar when said bar moves in the other direction.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 1,281,792 Knistrom Oct. 15, 1918 1,484,237 Rauchwetter Feb. 19, 1924 2,562,172 Campos July 31, 1951

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