Object Record
Metadata
Catalog Number |
2018.0011.0094 |
Object Name |
Box |
Description |
An empty cardboard box for a Hep Motorola 52 Silicon PNP Transistor. The top of the box is a flat piece of cardboard that is yellow with black text. It also has a small hole in the top to allow the box to be hung. The black text details the features of the transistor, such as typical dc current gain of 80 and collector voltages up to 12 volts, as well as gives a small diagram of the emitter, base, and collector nodes. Bellow the yellow panel is a grey box with a plastic window revealing the empty inside of the box where the transistor would have been stored. The transistor has three prongs/nodes, and the Motorola M and "Hep" printed on it. In the bottom left corner of the grey box, "Q1" has been written in red ink. In the bottom right corner, in smudged black ink is written "others + ports". The back of the yellow panel is uncolored cardboard. |
Date |
late 1960s |
Provenance |
Donor's stepfather Vernon Grimes helped develop the beep ball while volunteering for the Colorado School for the Deaf and the Blind in the late 1960s. Charles Fairbanks, an engineer at Mountain bell, initially came up with the concept and first prototype of the ball by placing a battery powered phone ringer into a softball. Grimes and other volunteers from the Telephone Pioneers of America (a non-profit comprised of retired phone company professionals) improved upon the device to make it usable to play a version of baseball for the blind and hard of sight. To fix the problem of the ball and interior electronic components breaking when being hit by a bat, the ball was inserted into a large 16-inch softball. The inside electronic parts became more refined with the addition of two electric circuit boards and more powerful batteries. With the improved ball, the sport became popular with its first World Series taking place in 1976. Beep Ball follows the basic rules of baseball, with some alterations such as a closer pitchers mount and a smaller field without a second base. |