I re-visited the Science Museum in London during the summer, with a friend visiting from Siberia. We were looking at the work of James Watt (who was born here) and I was amused to notice, which I hadn't before, that Boulton & Watt LEASED their steam engines to manufacturers, and that the engines (a few of which are in the Science Museum) had clockwork counters. These recorded each revolution of the engine, and the lessee was charged accordingly. Exactly this method is used today by photocopier companies. Until very recently, the counters were clockwork, too. Best regards, David Boyce. (old enough also to have been taught basic slide rule functions in school....) > Hey, I'm about to make a set of strings for an Erard at Buckingham > Palace. They were delivered by a footman in a brougham with strict > instructions that I do the calcs using an abacus and wear a top-hat > and kid gloves while I'm at the machine. Thank goodness Erard had > steam power like mine when that piano was made, otherwise I'd have to > pay a lad to come and turn the wheel. > > JD -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20101116/edeba2e4/attachment-0001.htm>
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