Set 393

For first time visitors I recommend this archive for some of my best posts.




2269. Around 14" long:

































2270. 6' tall:



























2271. Over 48" tall:

Larger image































2272. 11-1/2" long:

Larger image




























2273. 18" tall, sent in by a visitor who is looking to find the purpose of this device:





























2274. 2-1/8" long, take a look at Neatorama for more guesses and a chance to win a T-shirt:





Larger image



Larger image









Answers:


2269. An Air Traffic Controller's Signal Light Gun, used to signal pilots when radio communication isn't working.

































2270. An IBM 305 RAMAC hard drive from 1956

It was the first commercial computer to use a moving head hard disk drive, storing five million characters of accounting data, the equivalent of 64,000 punch cards, on 50 24" magnetic disks. To put it in today's terms, the colossal machine held about 5MB of data. Its magnetic disks were accessed by two arms, controlled by vacuum-tubes, that were noisily protected by compressed air.

2271. A seed corn drier, ears of corn were placed on the spikes to dry, the door was used to place in a lamp or heater, patent number 1,228,556.

Larger image































2272. A Juno Model 3 Geiger Counter:

Larger image




























2273. Lots of interesting guesses for this device but I haven't been able to verify any of them:

-Lamp or heater for use in a high dust environment

-Kerosene heater
-Airport runway or taxiway marker lantern
-Old road side smudge pot lamp
-A fumigator
-Roadworker's marker lamp
-Smudge pot -- a dirty-burning flame to coat an orchard with soot as part of a protection against freezing
-Alternate form of a Davy safety lamp






























2274. A salt pulverizer, for breaking up salt in a shaker, it's also called a salt declumper, patent number 71,643:







Other patented salt pulverizers:
Number 270,189




Number 188,709




Number 2,442,486









Larger image



Larger image







Next week I'll be posting on Wednesday morning instead of the usual Thursday.










Three of the funniest books that I've read:





































The answers will be posted on Friday evening.















To submit photos, send them to the address in my profile.















Last week's set is seen below, click here to view the entire post.








More discussion and comments on these photos can be found at the newsgroup rec.puzzles.