"Kirk Gordon" wrote in message
...

Yeah, it's a lie. The beginnings of NC/CNC were done by a couple
guys in a tool shop in Traverse City, Michigan.

That was Parsons Corp., Traverse City. They were producing helicopter-blade
templets with the aid of an IBM 602A Multiplier, calculating positions and
then setting the machine to those positions by hand.

They made charts of X/Y
coordinates for movements on a Bridgeport mill.

A Swiss jig borer, actually.

This wasn't NC machining, of course; but it was a beginning. The
two guys in the tool shop (Parsons might have been one of them; but the
names escape me at the moment), showed their idea to the defense
department as a way to improve and streamline the manufacture of
military stuff.

Integral-rib wing skins were the items that provoked the whole idea of using
electronic control, but the original Air Force demonstrations were on a
helicopter blade. Then demos were done in late 1948 on a 16-in.-wingspan
wing model with a tapered chord. The demos were done at Snyder Corp. in
Detroit. The Air Force granted the contract on June 15, 1949.

That led to the idea being taken up by MIT, with DOD
funding, where the two guys with charts and handles were replaced by
punched cards, crude calculating machines with relays and vacuum tubes,
and electric motors. THAT was the first NC machine.

That's pretty much it. It should be pointed out that it was controlled by a
computer, not by a simple logic controller, so it was also the first CNC
machine.

--
Ed Huntress
(remove "3" from email address for email reply)