Celebrity Inventors
Mark Twain (Samuel L. Clemens) received Patent No. 121,992 for "An Improvement in Adjustable and Detachable Straps for Garments." He later received two more patents: one for a self-pasting scrapbook and one for a game to help players remember important historical dates.
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| Number | Title | Issue Date |
| 4328463 | Encoder for recording incremental changes A circuit for detecting leading or lagging phase relationship between first and second two-level input signals at each level transition of both of said input signals and comprising first and second voltage comparators each having first and second input te... | 05/04/1982 |
| 4321531 | Direction sensitive pulse initiator for a wattmeter A direction sensitive pulse initiator for a watthour meter having a rotating disc. A pair of sensors sense the presence of an indicator portion or portions, on the rotating disc or on an auxiliary disc, to produce electrical signals which are decoded to i... | 03/23/1982 |
| 4315252 | Apparatus for detecting the relative position of two movable bodies Apparatus is disclosed for detecting the relative position or displacement between two movable bodies, wherein a reader or sensor mounted on one of the two bodies reads a code pattern on the other body. A code pattern is provided that represents a binary-... | 02/09/1982 |
| 4313109 | Initialization control for light beam position indicator A crossed light beam position indicator includes orthogonal arrays of paired light emitters and detectors for covering a display surface with crossed light beams and scanning means coupled to the emitters and detectors for electronically scanning the orth... | 01/26/1982 |
| 4301447 | Scan control for light beam position indicator A crossed light beam position indicator includes orthogonal arrays of paired light emitters and detectors for covering a display surface with crossed light beams, scanning means coupled to the emitters and detectors for electronically scanning the orthogo... | 11/17/1981 |
| 4243962 | Digital tuning element and method of making same A digital tuning element and method of making same for an electronic tuning means for an automobile radio which has a drive means for positioning said element, detecting means providing an electrical output signal related to the position of said tuning el... | 01/06/1981 |
| 4227187 | High speed real time quantizer and analog/digital converter A system for performing real time quantization and analog/digital conversion of an analog waveform operating with analog input signals over one gigahertz bandwidth is realized by utilizing a CRT type device in which the electron beam is deflected by the a... | 10/07/1980 |
| 4224604 | Digital optical display with magnetic code plate indexing A digital optical display device incorporated in a scale including a movable measuring member, a code plate with opaque and transparent areas, a stationary light source irradiating the code plate, a seven-segment display adjacent the code plate and having... | 09/23/1980 |
| 4221328 | Data read-out system and apparatus useful for angular measurements Data acquired from a source such as a coded disc is processed so as to be free of ambiguities associated with boundary transitions where the data source produces groups of bits which have least significant ordering and higher significant ordering. Whereve... | 09/09/1980 |
| 4215337 | Dual-disc shaft position encoder The disclosed forms of shaft-position encoder employ "fast" and "slow" rotary selectors coupled by gearing to each other and to the shaft whose position is to be encoded. The selectors cooperate selectively with elements in respective "fast" and "slow" ci... | 07/29/1980 |
| 4185274 | High-speed electrooptical A/D converter An electrooptical analog-to-digital (A/D) converter. A laser beam is coupled into a waveguide which has been fabricated on an electrooptical crystal such as a lithium niobate LiNbO3 crystal. Electrodes are placed relative to the waveguide to fo... | 01/22/1980 |
| 4183014 | Absolute encoding apparatus First and second similar rotary encoders are interconnected such that the first encoder actuates the second encoder to advance one position for each half revolution of the first encoder. The first encoder is coupled to monitor the position of a rotary com... | 01/08/1980 |
| 4173752 | Gray code reader An analog to digital convertor for converting mechanical motion to an electric digital signal which includes a code plate carrying gray codes for measuring displacement, codes for parity bits and parity check control bits and gray code reading means and d... | 11/06/1979 |
| 4171522 | Electronic angular position encoder apparatus The encoded angular position of a rotating object is produced by an electronic digital counter that is clocked by a programmable frequency source. The source frequency is adjusted as necessary by a processor so that the number of counts registered by the ... | 10/16/1979 |
| 4146873 | Gray code reader An analog to digital convertor for converting mechanical motion to an electric digital signal which includes a code plate carrying gray codes for measuring displacement, and codes for parity bits and parity check control bits wherein the parity bits detec... | 03/27/1979 |
| 4143364 | Optical displacement measuring system A system for processing cyclic signal pairs generated by an optical transducer to provide an accurate measurement of the displacement of one member with respect to a reference is suitable for determining weight by measuring spring scale tare deflection. T... | 03/06/1979 |
| 4117320 | Digital measuring instruments A digital instrument produces a continuous digital readout representative of the linear movement of a member positioned by a rotatable shaft. The instrument comprises equally spaced markings formed on an element carried by a bushing intended to be secured... | 09/26/1978 |
| 4114035 | Position encoder employing charge transfer circuit An element, the position of which it is desired to sense, controls the illumination of a charge transfer register. In one embodiment, for example, the element controls the position of a mask between a light source and a linear CCD array to thereby control... | 09/12/1978 |
| 4110610 | Digital electrical position transducer An electro-optical position transducer employs an optical mask having a number of parallel channels formed of alternating opaque and transparent sections extending along the direction of motion of a movable member. One channel has opaque and transparent s... | 08/29/1978 |
| 4101882 | Data read-out system and apparatus useful for angular measurements Data acquired from a source such as a coded disc is processed so as to be free of ambiguities associated with boundary transitions where the data source produces groups of bits which have least significant ordering and higher significant ordering. Whereve... | 07/18/1978 |
| 4100420 | Displacement transducers A displacement transducer comprises a charge coupled device having a plurality of light sensitive stages arranged in a line. An obturating member connected to a member whose displacement is to be transduced is disposed between the charge coupled device an... | 07/11/1978 |
| 4094371 | Digital display for weighing scales System for providing a digital indication of the load on a scale, utilizing a relative position transducer to produce two output signals which vary between fixed levels in response to incremental displacements of the output indicator of the scale. The two... | 06/13/1978 |
| 4086580 | Digital altitude encoder In one exemplar embodiment, a digital altitude encoder is provided that utilizes a conventional altimeter responsive to atmospheric pressure for rotationally driving an indicator shaft. Attached to the shaft is a disc having repetitive, alternate, regular... | 04/25/1978 |
| 4078232 | Optical analog to digital converter a Bourdon tube is situated down hole in an oil well or the like, and has attached thereto a coded wheel which rotates an amount determined by the sensed down hole pressure. The wheel has a number of transparent and opaque concentric bands thereon which fo... | 03/07/1978 |
| 4074258 | Device for reading displacements of a movable member A device for reading out the position of a movable member comprising a sc carried by that member and having equidistant coded references. Each reference is different from the others. A stationary optical system forms the image of a portion of the scale o... | 02/14/1978 |
| 4064435 | Radial optical encoder apparatus for shaft angle measurement A radial optical encoder apparatus utilizing a pair of diametrically-opposite optical encoders in conjunction with a rotating faceted mirror for precision measurement of rotary shaft angles.... | 12/20/1977 |
| 4064504 | Digital coding of angles In a digital angle coder, a revolving disc bears a first series of marks ularly spaced around its axis, capable of being read by two diametrically-opposed fixed heads, and a second series of marks equal in number to the first, regularly spaced around the... | 12/20/1977 |
| 4062242 | Machine for balancing vehicle wheels In this machine, an optical coding device furnishes a plurality of code numbers one of which is stored upon each rotation of the wheel to be balanced when the latter rotates at a stable measuring speed. This stored number corresponds to the passage of the... | 12/13/1977 |
| 4047025 | Position indicating system and methods An apparatus and method are provided for indicating the location of a device such as a machine tool component or an inspection probe so as to permit the automatic control thereof or the derivation of information defining its position for automatically mea... | 09/06/1977 |
| 4047024 | Photoelectric disc reader with alternate reading locations A photoelectric pulse initiator includes a rotating pattern having a single track of indicia scanned by two optoelectronic sensors. The sensors having different mounting relationships for scanning different indicia patterns. Alternate impulses from the se... | 09/06/1977 |
| 4047007 | Clocked digital counting system A system for processing cyclic signal pairs generated by an optical transducer to provide an accurate measurement of the displacement of one member with respect to a reference is suitable for determining weight by measuring spring scale tare deflection. T... | 09/06/1977 |
| 4015253 | Rotary digital channel selection apparatus A combination control knob and encoder drum unit, which has a number of indexing indentations corresponding to the number of desired stable positions thereof, is sized to pass through an opening in a control panel behind which is mounted a drum-receiving ... | 03/29/1977 |
| 3990053 | Stored program selector for electronic calculator A program selector in an electronic calculator has a number of formulas which are printed in human readable form. When a formula is selected by the operator a machine readable representation of the formula is positioned adjacent a transducer. The transduc... | 11/02/1976 |
| 3976997 | Digital plus analog output encoder The disclosed encoder is adapted to produce both digital and analog output signals corresponding to the angular position of a rotary shaft, or the position of any other movable member. The digital signals comprise a series of binary signals constituting a... | 08/24/1976 |
| 3967271 | Digital shaft encoder circuit for scales An optical shaft encoder is mounted on a mechanical scale with direct coupling between the encoder and the scale pointer. The shaft encoder generates an up or down pulse train, depending on the direction of rotation of the scale shaft. The pulse train is ... | 06/29/1976 |
| 3951271 | Robot control device A control means for a robot transfer device in which there are provided control heads including positional sensing devices connected so as to sense the movement of the robot device in each plane, or direction, and coded signal generating means providing a... | 04/20/1976 |
| 3947843 | Arrangement for preventing ambiguity in digital displacement measuring apparatus The displacement of a first element relative to a second element in a predetermined direction is measured by a code display which has sets of code markings, each set representing a predetermined unit of displacement, spaced at predetermined distances from... | 03/30/1976 |
