Friden Flexowriter

At 22:53 11/23/98 -0600, Doug Yowza wrote: I have a Flexowriter setting in the basement of our old house. Let me tell you a bit about another common use for Flexowriters. At my past place of employment, the one I have once was used as a numerical control programming terminal. It stood alone, no electrical communications connection to the machine tool for which a program was being written. An ASCII paper tape was punched containing the programmed moves and machining functions (standard "M" and "G" functions plus others) which was carried over to the numerically controlled machine tool, loaded and started. A couple of the NC controllers we had were the old General Electric Century Mark II models which controlled large Burgmaster NC drilling machines. They were a mid-50's design using stepper switches and bunches of hermetically-sealed relays and a two-axis thyratron servo table positioning system. A Fiden tape reader was used to read the tape several characters at a time according to the next move or function the machine was required to make while the program was run. AGHHH! Those Mark II's were ornery and hard to troubleshoot with all their relay logic and the tight timings thereof. A rather small two pound PLC would handle the programming and controlling on those Burgmasters today in conjunction with a new, solid state servo drive system. I still have the Mark II printsets which are by now, I would guess, *really* rare. Back in the 50's, 60's and to the mid-70's paper tape was a very typical way a machine tool program would be generated and run. A 'real' computer was far too expensive especially for small shops back in the old days to run a typical machine tool. Huge companies may have had some sort of single computer to act as a program generating and storage device which was somehow linked to a large group of NC machines but I personally know of no real examples. But I would wager IBM, DEC, General Electric and others had some involvement with this either in their own large factories or as a contractor to others. Microprocessor-based CNC (CNC = Computer Numerical Control) controls began to replace the old NC controls around the mid-70's. Removeable media, semiconductor memory and especially the revolutionary microprocessor helped drive this change from paper tape NC systems. The Fridens and Teletype ASR33s (which were another popular paper tape generating device) slowly began to be scrapped. Back in the early 80's, ACU-RITE Inc. took the NC machines and this Flexowriter out of service. Most of the machines were sold to others and the Flexowriter tossed into warehouse storage. For a couple of machines we kept I designed the mechanical and electrical interfaces for installation of a couple of those new-fangled CNC boxes which one could buy separately (Bendix Dynapaths were used) and built a couple of simple CNC Bridgeport mills for the company's machine shop. During that time, I rescued the Flexowriter out of a dumpster after I discovered that warehouse storage area was being cleaned out. I also grabbed my DG Nova 1200 and other DG items before it was supposed hit the dumpster later that week! :-) Well, this Flexowriter is not something that was in my collecting interest but I kept it all these years. Therefore, I never actively kept an eye open for Friden docs, parts or such stuff. It is on topic for our group so I will pay better attention for Flexowriter items, docs and pointers. Now I must get rid of the Flexowriter as I do not have enough room to keep it (just ask Hans F. and his wife who have seen only a small part of my collection :-)). FREE to a good home. It's heavy! It should be restorable or at least good for parts. Otherwise, and I'm not joking, it will have to end up at the scrap yard to continue its original destination from 15 years ago :( Regards, Chris -- -- Christian Fandt, Electronic/Electrical Historian Jamestown, NY USA cfandt(a)netsync.net Member of Antique Wireless Association URL: http://www.ggw.org/freenet/a/awa/