Word: gadget
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...interesting gadget now being installed in communications companies' offices the world over is the automatic teletype printer-a kind of typewriter-substitute for the time-honored telegrapher's key. You can type out a message on the keyboard, have it automatically transmitted overseas by radio or cable circuits to come out in print on a teletype at the other...
...program's national audience. (Says Schwerin: "There is no such thing as a typical radio audience.") Then they listen to programs, recording their reactions on a tab sheet. About every 30 seconds they check the "good," "fair," or "poor" column. After Jan. 1, testers will use a mechanical gadget called the "reacto-caster," developed by Schwerin's father...
...high altitudes, can reach compressibility in ordinary level flight. The pilot opens the throttle. The speed picks up as the magic jet engine shoves harder. It is as smooth as oil, so nearly vibrationless that sometimes a special gadget is installed to tap on the instrument board and keep the plane's instruments from sticking...
...fifth of the usual transmitter weight will be required henceforth for ordinary communication purposes with a device announced to the American Psychological Association recently by Dr. J. C. R. Licklider, lecturer in Psychology and research fellow at the Psyche-Acoustical Laboratory. Known as the premodulation clipper, the gadget uses a fraction of the normal power in transmitting speech in a distorted but intelligible...
From then on business boomed. Kahn set up his own shop (Weatherman Co.), took on 80 employes. The U.S. Weather Bureau attested to the gadget's accuracy. Ships Service at the Great Lakes Naval Training Station ordered five gross. Other orders flocked in from as far afield as South Africa, South America, the Far East. At $1.69 apiece, the weather houses grossed $70,000 in 1942, $350,000 the next year, $800,000 last year. Production has reached a rate of 6,500 units...