The World's First Digital Washing Machine Timer...

Automatic Washer - The world's coolest Washing Machines, Dryers and Dishwashers

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Neat!  Robert, where on earth do you find these items??  I never would have thought that a digital washer time was being worked on this early.   Thank you very much for sharing this!!
 
So what happened to/with this amazing device?

You've got the same amount of information now as I do Ken, I doubt it went any further. At least I've seen no evidence of that.
 
Just my style!

Can anyone ID the machine they modified?

From my eye, this looks like a 15-position ring counter composed of flip-flop ckts, the 'indicators' being neons used to hold the FF state.

Notice they only refer to it as an electronic sequence timer and not a one-button wash-all setup like the mechanical systems (I'm not seeing circuitry to support that, either). Now, if we could only see it with the front panel closed! -C
 
What a shame no washer manufacturer picked this up for a TOL model! I’d just love to see a console that said “transistorized” in backlit script beneath a row of chrome plated buttons for every possible cycle . . .
 
Id love to see

a Nixie tube display - now that would be over the top !!!

 

 

Okay Cory please clarify what a "ckt" is and what a "FF" state is (flip flop?) ?

Mallory has a few electronic timer patents around 1966 for dishwashers, can't find anything like this 1960 Eniac machine.

The earliest timer I see is 1962  - [COLOR=#222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-weight: normal; background-color: #f5f5f5]US3206650 A[/COLOR]

[COLOR=#222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-weight: normal; background-color: #f5f5f5]I think I found it but it appears to be filed in 1966----- [/COLOR][COLOR=#222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-weight: normal; background-color: #f5f5f5]US3450995 A[/COLOR]

 

<span style="font-size: 12pt;">That patent uses ring counters to time sequences long or short for an appliance. </span>

<span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span>

 

 

 

 

 

[this post was last edited: 11/13/2014-16:43]
 
Engineers were thinking in the digital domain well prior to 1960. I had no idea it had been applied to laundry timers that early. Well really, it wasn't. You could never buy the Mallory digital timer.

The mechanical 'fast forward' timer is what was sold, prior to full 'computer' control. Which has been a reliability nightmare. Not because the concept is flawed but because of cutcorner engineering to meet consumer pricelines.

And we're talking pennies withheld from the price of an entire system, which would have made the difference between bulletproof and 'maybe make it past warranty'.
 
I came to computers

in 1968 with the Olivetti Programma - we learned how the memory registers worked, wrote a program to do the Fibonacci  Series.  Loaded the program and ran it and then checked it with a flow diagram we had made of the program.

So this was ahead of ring counters, it had magnetic "loop" registers which held values that were moved into a calculator at a specific point in the program. 

I don't really understand ring counters yet. I know they were first made with vacuum tubes but thats about it.

 

The video on that page is FANTASTIC BTW !!

 

 

http://www.ganzomag.com/olivetti-worlds-first-desktop-computer.html
 
Sorry Jon...

CKT=Circuit and FF=Flip Flop. I think the big news here is that it's transistorized..this was right about when solid state turned the corner.

By my count, I spot 45 transistors! And at several bucks each in 59/60 dollars, it's definitely a proof of concept only.

The irony is that the references to the ENIAC aren't far off! It, too, used ring counter circuits and a high speed clock which is why it required some 18,000 tubes. It never occurred to the designers until the thing was being assembled that the same flip-flop circuits could have been used to form binary counters instead of decimal, which would have cut the tube count in half!

To give you an idea of the state of "affordable" digital electronics in '60, is one of my favorite calculators, the ANITA Mark 8. It used 180 cold cathode tubes (transistors were too expensive) and sold for over $1000. -Cory



http://www.vintagecalculators.com/html/anita_mk_8.html
 
It's always interesting when you think some consumer product innovation is totally new and then you find out it was actually in use years or even decades prior. Two examples in my collection:

1) 1939 Philco console radio with wireless remote control. Philco called it their "Mystery Control". You could change stations, change volume, and turn it off(but not on). I had no idea this existed until I brought one home and started digging into the schematic. A few years later, I scored the remote for it.

2) 1947 Seeburg jukebox. There were wired wallboxes for it and wireless ones. The wireless wallboxes imposed a radio signal over the AC power lines(aka carrier current) and the receiver inside the jukebox would decode the pulses into a selection.

Pretty cool stuff considering the technology at the time.
 

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