Automatically Programmed Tool (APT)
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Born out of the MIT Servomechanisms Lab in , as a brainchild of the Computer Applications Group, Automatically Programmed Tool (APT) is an easy-to-use, high-level programming language intended specifically to generate instructions for numerically controlled machine tools. The original version preceded FORTRAN, but later versions were rewritten in FORTRAN.
APT was the language created to work with MIT&#;s first NC machine, one of the first in the world. It went on to become the standard for programming computer-controlled machine tools and was used widely through the s. Development of APT was sponsored by the Air Force, and it was eventually added to the public domain.
The head of the Computer Applications Group, Douglas T. Ross, is known as the father of APT. He also later coined the term &#;computer-aided design&#; (CAD).
Before the advent of computer-numerically controlled machines, first came the development of numerical control and the first NC machine tools. And while there are some discrepancies in different accounts of the historical details, the first NC machine tools were both a response to specific manufacturing challenges faced by the military as well as a natural progression of the punch card system.
&#;Numerical control marked the beginning of the second industrial revolution and the advent of an age in which the control of machines and industrial processes would pass from imprecise draft to exact science.&#; &#; The Society of Manufacturing Engineers
MEET JOHN T. PARSONS, THE FATHER OF NUMERICAL CONTROL
American inventor John T. Parsons (&#;) is widely considered the father of numerical control, which he conceived and implemented with the help of aircraft engineer Frank L. Stulen. The son of a Michigan manufacturer, Parsons began working in his father&#;s factory as an assembler at the age of 14. Later, he owned and operated a number of manufacturing plants under the family business, Parsons Manufacturing Co.
Parsons holds the first NC patent and was inducted in the National Inventors Hall of Fame for his groundbreaking work in numerical control. In total, Parsons holds 15 patents, with another 35 granted to his business. The Society of Manufacturing Engineers interviewed Parsons in to get the story from his perspective. This engaging read is available in an online archive.
&#;Sikorsky was making blades by hand. I made assembly fixtures. Blades were complicated because a balance weight was installed on the front end of the blade to help with the tilt up for the pitch-change angle. My assembly techniques worked out great.&#; &#; John T. Parsons
&#;In , the goal of easily varying the sequence of movements of an automatic machine tool &#; as contrasted with merely setting in motion a fixed sequence &#; was being pursued in two principal ways: tracer control and numeric control. The first, as we have seen, required a physical model of the object to be fabricated (or at least a complete drawing of it, as with the Cincinnati Line-Tracer Hydro-). The second required not an image of the finished object or part, but only an abstraction of it: a mathematical model and instructions to the machine.&#; &#; Electricity in the American Economy
MIT&#;s Account of the Dispute
&#;After World War II, the U.S. Air Force gave several contracts to the Parsons Corporation to develop further the numerically control machining innovations made by its founder John Parsons. Interested in experiments being conducted at the MIT Servomechanisms Laboratory, Parsons proposed in that MIT become a project subcontractor to provide expertise on automatic control. Over the next 10 years, MIT gained control over the entire project as the Servomechanisms Laboratory vision of &#;three-axis continuous path control&#; supplanted the original Parsons conception of &#;plunge-cutting positioning.&#; Conflict always shapes technology but this particular story, chronicled by historian David Noble, has become a significant object lesson in the history of technology.&#; [source]
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Parsons&#; Account of the Dispute
&#;The problem was that MIT overshot their budget with me by about $50,000. I finally had to ask the government for more money for the servomechanism. MIT gave me an amount that I used for the bid then I added on my portion of the work. So I put in my bid for a price increase, and MIT underbid me.
&#;MIT told me they had one overhead rate for private industry, and another, lower one, for the government. But I never dreamed that anybody as reputable as MIT would deliberately go ahead and take over my project. MIT knew the costs were going up, and they were afraid the government might back out on the whole deal. They were even looking for a machine to experiment with. MIT was aware of a lot of government surplus machine tools used during World War II, and they went looking for one, which ended up being a Cincinnati Hydro- vertical milling machine with a 24×60&#; bed size. At this point, MIT negotiated a new contract with the Air Force that essentially removed the Parsons Company from further development of the NC system.&#; [source]
SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN&#;S SEPTEMBER ISSUE
Scientific American&#;s September issue on Automatic Control was way ahead of its time, featuring a set of seven articles about &#;self-regulating machines, which represent a scientific and technological revolution that will powerfully shape the future of man.&#; Modern Mechanix scanned and shared five of the articles, including &#;An Automatic Machine Tool&#; by MIT&#;s William Pease about the first NC machine they created. The tagline reads, &#;Feedback control has begun to advance in the working of metals. Presenting the first account of a milling machine that converts information on punched tape into the contours of a finished part.&#;
&#;The M.I.T. system combines digital and analogue processes under feedback control to govern a milling machine whose cutting tool moves in three planes relative to the work piece. In this case the &#;model&#; of the object to be fabricated is supplied to the machine in the form of a perforated paper tape similar to that used in teletype systems. For a typical operation, 10 feet of tape will keep the machine busy for an hour.&#; &#; William Pease, Scientific American
Video: Sperry Numeric Control Promo Video for Industrial Tape Reader
We wrap up Part 1 of this three-part series with a classic video from the era: a glimpse into the machining era of the s.
&#;This tape reader can read 20 lines of tape in 200 milliseconds! Designed for reliability as well as speed, it can read a whole block of information as once, thereby eliminating the shift register or memory store that is normal to other systems that use sequential readers.&#;
From workshops to large industrial plants, computer numerical control &#; or CNC &#; machines have become integral parts of the production and manufacturing industries. The history of CNC machining dates back to when it was simply referred to as numerical control. This was an older system that didn&#;t involve programmable computers.
The history of CNC machines dates back to John Parsons, who is credited with the first CNC machine. CNC technology has evolved for several decades from punch tape-controlled devices to computer-programmable machines.
Today, engineers continue producing CNC machinery with better speed and accuracy through automated precision.
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