Museum Brings New Life to Obsolete Technology

By Emma Jacobs, WSKG

Binghamton, NY – In an old ice cream factory outside downtown Binghamton, a group of men are standing around a boxy metal contraption rigged up on a high platform.

The machine is a very early flight simulator, so early it doesn't have visuals. In fact, it doesn't have a screen at all. Its electronic instruments are powered by vacuum tubes, which the team is trying to start up now.

Don McCarty flips a switch, and points out that the tubes are warming up. It's not like a transistor radio, according to his colleague Gordon Ruston, it's not "instant on."

The machine makes a loud click and it's followed rapidly by a snap.

"And that was the sound of a circuit breaker tripping," McCarty quips.

The flight simulator was invented in Binghamton in the 1920s by amateur pilot, Ed Link. This team is at work restoring the 1940s-era machine. They are mostly retirees who've worked at various subsidiaries of the company Link founded.

"Off the street"

Why are these men using their retirement to fiddle with the machines they once worked on for a living?

"I'm retired and it keeps me off the street," says Jim Herz.

He works on the restoration along with Ruston.

"We were all quite fortunate to do things that we enjoyed for a living," Ruston says. Herz agrees.

"Yeah, we enjoyed doing it and now we have an opportunity to play around for a couple of hours a week - so we do."

The group is working against a deadline though. On August 20th, their home, the Center for Technology and Innovation will hold its first open house in its permanent location, the 30,000-square foot factory, built in 1912.

In the factory's loading dock, others have begun work on another of the center's most precious objects, a 1961 IBM computer called the 1440. The museum's director, Susan Sherwood, says this machine may be one of the last in existence.

"It wasn't the first, it wasn't the best, it wasn't the fastest, but it was an interesting midpoint in circuit packaging, which was what IBM Endicott was really known for," explains Sherwood.

The 1440 is made up of a console and six foot tall processor. It weighs in at almost a quarter of a ton and delivers just 8k of memory. That's less than a digital wristwatch. This machine was found in a warehouse on the California/Mexico border. It was not in good shape.

"When I saw this, I said, 'oh my god, what have they done to her'," says Bill Davis, a former IBM technician. It was so bad, mice had even built nests inside.

Since clearing out the processor, the IBM team has been at work on restoring the wiring and mechanicals. One of the biggest challenges in getting both devices ready for prime-time is that many of the people who originally worked on the machines are now in their eighties or nineties. Many have passed away.

Herz and his colleagues know one or two people who worked on the original flight simulator. They still work mostly from memories and manuals.

Sherwood says that flagging connection to the past is part of the reason for creating the museum: it's meant to document the achievements of past generations working in this area, because, as she says, "no one else will do it if we don't."

Sherwood also wants what she calls the "amazing things" the former technicians have accomplished to inspire visitors own innovations.

"Somewhere under those white [haired] heads ... are the answers, or the suggestions or the strategies for effective management of technology," she says.

It's going to take a lot more work to present the achievements on an ongoing basis. The Center for Technology and Innovation needs somewhere between $12 and 14 million dollars to renovate the factory and build the exhibits. And it turns out that's pretty hard to raise since these same companies that were the philanthropic backbone of the region have mostly left. Sherwood hopes events like the open house will increase the project's visibility.

"Full throttle"

Back in the warehouse, the flight simulator team makes another trial of plugging in the machine. The engine revs. McCarty watches the indicators move, and calls out the machine's progress: air speed, full throttle, air speed climbing, nose up, air speed dropping, altitude going up, nose down.

Herz is impressed by the results.

"That's kind of a miracle," he says.

The stakes are high for getting the simulator up and running, and keeping it and other objects in working order. The August open house will be the first opportunity to see the restored simulator - and the last, until the museum raises the funds to open up its exhibits for good.