In the 1800′s, inventors Thomas Blanchard and Christopher Miner Spencer developed lathes, which were an innovation from the cam technology that had been used in music boxes and cuckoo clocks. The work of Jacquard Loom and Charles Babbage in mechanical computers being abstractly programmed was a reality in the 1800′s but their work was not picked up by the machine tool industry.
Applying hydraulics to tracing templates using a stylus, which helped industrialize automation, developed machines like the Pratt and Whitney “Keller Machine”. Capturing the manual movements of a machinist on a machine and playing those movements back on command by a machine was a method invented by General Motors in the 1950′s.
The problem with developing a computerized numerical control machine was in the degree of reliability in the reading by the machine of the abstract code. The invention of the Servo, which gave right measurement information, solved that problem.
When one servo’s performance was repeated by a remote servo a Selsyn was made. The products of a Selsyn could be read by various mechanical and electrical systems to ensure that the right information had been transferred.
A Swedish immigrant employed by General Electric, Ernst F.W. Alexanderson, suggested that Selsyn’s could be used for machining control. General Electric used Alexanderson’s use of a mechanical computer that amplified torque letting big machines to be run by little force, in their gun laying system for United States Navy ships.
The work of John T. Parsons in 1942 gave him the credit for founding the numerical control machine in his efforts to make a helicopter propeller. Needing help on his punch card input machine, Parsons turned to MIT who took his invention and to Parsons surprise, left him out of production.
Later, John Runyon used computer control to make punch tapes on the Whirlwind. In June, 1956, the Air Force proposed a uniform “programming” language for numerical control introducing computerized numerical control.
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