1739 Dividing engine

Dividing engine

• Ruler, caliper, micrometer,
• protractor, astrolabe, sextant,
• theodolite, and telescopic mount,
• machinists, navigators, surveyors,
• astronomers, and other scientists
• all needed finer and more accurate divisions.
• Henry Hindley made one
• of the first dividing engines
• based on a machine
• for cutting gears of a clock.

Observations by John Smeaton

• On the first interview
• he showed me not only his general set of tools,
• but his engine,
• at that time furnished with a dividing plate,
• with a great variety of numbers
• for cutting teeth of clock wheels, &c.
• and also, for more nice and curious purposes,
• furnished with a wheel
• of about thirteen inches diameter,
• very stout and strong,
• and cut into 360 teeth;
• to which was applied
• an endless screw, adapted thereto.

Instruments that made instruments

• Henry Hindley made
• watches, clocks, scientific instruments,
• and tools that cut brass
• and inscribed scales
• for instruments and clocks.
• Keeping time,
• cutting time into smaller intervals,
• cutting gears,
• dividing intervals
• by predictable movements.

Meta engines

• Instead of marking gradations on each instrument manually,
• Henry Hindley made a dividing engine.
• Instead of writing another compiler,
• Stephen C. Johnson wrote yet another compiler compiler.