AOne-Eyed Machine Stenographer 



IN the July iuiml)er of the Poih'i.ak 

 ScuiNCi-; MoNJiii.Y we descril)e<l .i 

 typewriter (iiX'rated l)\- the human 

 voice. Mr. Joliii H. 

 Flowers, of Brooklyn, 

 N. Y., the iiuentor, 

 has devised another 

 machine, which is 

 nothing more or less 

 than an "eye-operated 

 t\ pewriter." 



On top of this new 

 machine isa hui;e round 

 ball. That hall is a 

 ni e c h a n i c a 1 eye — 

 equipped with a lens 

 and a retina just like 

 the human eye. Hold 

 a typewritten sheet of 

 paper up in front of 

 that eye, and it "sees" 

 it, even as all of us 

 would. 



Unfortunately, per- 

 haps, that eye can not 

 turn in a socket like 

 ours, so it rides to and 

 fro on the t\i)ewriter 

 carriage instead, the 

 lateral motion of the 

 carriage causing tiie eye to pnjgress from 

 one word to the next of the line of print 

 which it is mechanicalh' copying. 



tteCIRlCALlv 



When the end of the line is readied and 

 tile eye can not see anything hut blank 

 paper ahead, like a sensible being it sends 





Diagrammatic Representation oi" the Meclianical 

 Eye-Operated Typewriter. The Complicated Figure 

 at the Right Represents All the Letters of the Alpha- 

 bet Placed One on Top of the Other. Trace It 

 Through Carefully and Each Separate Letter May 

 Be Picked Out. The Small Black Rectangles Placed 

 One on Each tetter Represent Selenium Cells. This 

 Whole Arran<;ement Is Placed in the Back of the 

 Mechanical Eye and Is Connected with the Keys 



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The Typewriter Operated by the Mechanical Eye. The Huge 

 Round Ball on Top Is the Eye. It Happens at the Moment 

 To Be "Looking" At the Word "say" en the Sheet of Paper 

 at the Left. As the Eye Rides Along on the Typewriter Car- 

 riage the Separate Letters of "say" Fall on the Eye's Retina 

 in Succession. Selenium Cells Ate So Mounted in This Retina 

 that the "S," "A" and "Y" Each Has a Cell of Its Own, So 

 Placed That the Image from No Other Letter Than the Right 

 One Can Affect It. In This Way the Word "say" Is Copied 



an impulse down into the inner workings 

 of the machine to shift the pajier ahead 

 one line, and to move the carriage back 

 to the other end of its track to 

 start anew — which both paper 

 and carriage promptly and obe- 

 <liently proceed to do. 



The I'ye depends for its proper- 

 ties upon a number of selenium 

 cells. These are so arranged that 

 each one can be affected only by 

 one letter out of the alphabet. 

 The inventor of this remarkable 

 contrivance has already suc- 

 ceeded in getting it to work satis- 

 factorily on simpliT letters. The 

 ordinary business man has prob- 

 ai)ly ne\er thought that the time 

 would come when he would iiave 

 a one-eyed stenograj)her in his 

 office, and a mechanical one at 

 that, but apparenth- that time 

 is .not far off, if the invention 

 works out as well as it promises. 



