From: ddillon@renaissance.cray.com (David Dillon) Sender: owner-hammond@zk3.dec.com To: hammond@zk3.dec.com Subject: Re: Model A Date: Sun, 14 Jul 1996 11:10:23 -0700 Message-Id: <199607141810.LAA13703@renaissance.cray.com> On Sat, 13 Jul 1996 14:14:30, Tomas/Treshell Black wrote: > BRUBERTUS@aol.com wrote: > > > > Claude, > > Being a 'newbie' , I have no credibility , but here's my guess: > > The sept.91 issue of Keyboard had an article mentioning that Laurens > > Hammond , an American clock builder , was prosecuted by the FTC in 1936 for > > calling his instrument an organ. The article went on to say that he won the > > right to call it an 'Organ". > > I assumed the "Licensed for home and experimental use only" was some hoop > > he had to jump thru to win that right. ...but,.....I've been wrong before. > > > > W.W. > > That'w exactly the case. Until the issue was resolved, Hammond had to use that phrase to > be able to sell units. > > Tomas Black > A Model Ser#635 Laurens Hammond's first (I think) music- or organ-related patent was #1,956,350, granted Apr 24 1934. The title of this patent was "Electrical Musical Instrument"! Hammond uses the terms "electrical musical instrument" or "instrument" or occasionally "machine" throughout the patent. I don't believe the word "organ" appears in the patent (gosh, on-line text and a search engine would be nice right now). This patent describes an instrument similar to the early A/B/C models, although there are lots of differences in the details: 37-note upper manual, 68-note lower manual, 20-note pedalboard, one set of drawpars per manual, 7 drawbars per set (16' and 5-1/3' absent), 89 tonewheels rather than 91, and on and on. However, in a later patent, the "O" word actually appears. Laurens Hammond's patent #2,159,505, granted May 23 1939, is titled, "Electric Organ." This patent is for the use of a second tone generator to produce a chorus effect. Some early instruments, such as the model BC (C=chorus), had this second generator. Mr. Hammond loses his shyness about the word "organ" in this patent. Here are the first few sentences: " My invention relates to improvements in electrical musical instruments generally, and more particularly to improvements in electric organs of the type described in detail in my United States Patent No. 1,956,350. " Electric organs, as described above, are now manufactured in large numbers and have achieved popularity owing to their ability to synthesize a wide variety of tone colors, and to produce a wide range of different musical effects from a single series of electric generators, each one of which produces one of the fundamental pitches of the tempered musical scale. " Here he declares that #1,956,350 was about an "electric organ" after all! Very interesting stuff. -- Dave Dillon San Jose, CA