Automatic Age

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A N E W D EPARTU RE IN A U T O M A T IC MOVIES
By A R T H U R P R IC E , o f Freeport, N. Y.
Inventor of the Repeatoscope
During the past several years there has
been a great deal o f popular interest in
the numerous attempts which have been
made to develop automatic motion picture
machines using real films. The utility o f
such apparatus presents imaginative appeal
fo r wide application in the field o f Dis­
play Advertising and fo r Amusement
coin-operated machines.
Large sums of
money have been expended in various
efforts to produce machines o f this charac­
ter, but notwithstanding the number o f
these experiments, and the fact that the
Movie, as an industry, is now over thirty
years old, no commercially practical auto­
matic projector using ordinary films has
yet been perfected. Nor apparently is it
possible, in the present stage o f develop­
ment o f the film industry, fo r any auto­
matic machine using ordinary motion
picture films to succeed.
The total failure o f these devices which
have come and gone is to be attributed
to deficiency in one or more fundamental
factors essential to success o f any ap­
paratus o f this type, the chief and fore­
most among these being the ability to
operate reliably without attention or
tampering for at least a reasonable mini­
mum number o f exhibitions o f each film,
A close study o f what is required in this
respect indicates that any automatic ma­
chine, to be deemed practical, must be able
to yield not less than one thousand exhibi­
tions o f each film without any breakdown
or service requirement.
The more this
minimum can be exceeded the greater merit
the device will have.
However, this
fundamental requirement constitutes an
impassible barrier fo r any machine de­
signed to operate regular films, as exhaus­
tive tests have demonstrated that practic­
ally every film, whether 16, 28 or 35
millimeters wide, when operated automati­
cally, is almost certain to break within
one or two hundred showings, and as has
been proved time and again, breakage may
and frequently does occur much earlier.
The resultant splicing o f the films simply
increases the hazard o f further breakage,
yielding a condition whereby such ma­
© International Arcade Museum
chines require constant nursing with it s
attendant high costs, thus rendering such
devices wholly impractical from a commer­
cial standpoint.
Many other factors besides reliability in
operation enter into the requirements of
a practical automatic machine. Space does
not permit analysing these in detail here,
but briefly, they include; A worthy mech­
anism capable o f years o f service without
replacement o f working parts— the ability
to project a brilliant, clearly d efin ed
image o f adequate dimensions— the ability
to operate varying film length to suit the
subjects desired to be shown— simplicity
and facility fo r the ready installation and
changing o f films-—protection o f the film
when the machine is brought to rest from
the heat caused by the lamp on the aper­
ture plate— progressive exhibitions o f the
picture, i.e. no requirement fo r rewinding
(this predicates the operation o f endless
films)— economy in the production and
distribution o f machines and films— as a
coin machine the device must be capable
o f being left entirely to it’s own devices
fo r weeks at a time without any impair­
ment o f it’s ability to properly function.
The foregoing are but a few o f the
fundamental qualifications o f a p r a c tic a l
apparatus but they are more than e n o u g h
to negative the practicability o f any con­
temporary device o f this character w h ic h
employs ordinary films.
As with all other seemingly impossible
undertakings however, a way has been
found to solve the difficult problem of
producing a commercially practical auto­
matic projector which uses films, and it has
been the privilege o f the writer to develop
such a machine which more than fulfills
every essential requirement. This device
is named the Repeatoscope. On the theory
that “ no chain is stronger that it’s weakest
link” and that to provide vastly increased
wearing qualities o f the films would offer
the key to a solution o f the problem o f
successful automatic projection, the Rep­
eatoscope employs a long-wearing film
strip peculiar to it’s own requirement. This
film, while preserving all the advantages
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