Re: Who invented the buzzer?

• From: tfmichael1 <no_reply_at_yahoogroups.com>
• Date: Tue, 03 Dec 2002 20:39:57 -0000
• Message-ID: <asj4qt+6brc_at_...>

Though never patented, Dr. Carper's homemade portable system seems to 
come from 1971, and thus pre-dates Goodson's by a year. (Of course, 
Goodson may have invented it earlier but the patent wasn't granted 
until 1971.) The "original" circuit matches - organized by Dr. Carper 
of Berry, Jay Cliett of Georgia Southwestern, Bob Meredith at Georgia 
Tech, and Jim Pollard of Alabama-Huntsville - from 1970 onward played 
by hand-raising. Dr. Carper told me he still may have the buzzer in 
his attic. We've talked about getting together to tape an oral 
history; when we do I'll try to get a photo of it.

I have a Purdue Alumni publication from 1962 discussing their team's 
1961 College Bowl appearance, that discusses a homemade lockout 
system used for practice, but it does not seem to be portable. A 
picture of their lockout may exit in an issue of Life Magazine, which 
I am trying to track down.

Bible Bowl books from the 1964-5 show how to build a lockout system 
that is certainly NOT portable. It will be interesting to compare the 
book illustration with the Van Hemel .pdf file when Edmund posts it, 
to see if it's the same system.

Tom

P.S. Great research, Edmund!
--- In quizbowl_at_y..., cooterchekov <no_reply_at_y...> wrote:
> --- In quizbowl_at_y..., tfmichael1 <no_reply_at_y...> wrote:
> >That's one of the many fine 
> > achievements of Gordon Carper's program (...inventing the 
portable 
> lockout system....)
> 
> As near as I can tell (I am not a patent lawyer, but I do work for 
> one):
> The first invention that we'd recognize as a lockout system (light 
> goes on for the first player in & cuts off responses for subsequent 
> players) was invented by John P. Reynolds of Dayton, OH. 
> (Application filed May 24th, 1950, US patent #2,654,163). Followers 
> include Raymond W. Van Hemel of Allen Park, MI (App. Nov. 15th 
1961, 
> US Pat. #3,118,236) and Ralph M. Pincus of Paramus, NJ (App. Mar 
16, 
> 1970, US Pat #3,666,873). Van Hemel's disclosure specifies Bible 
> Bowl.
> 
> The first system clearly designed with an eye to portability, and 
> explicitly including sound, is by David R. Goodson of Goleta, CA 
> (App. Jan. 26, 1972, US Pat. #3,763,577). According to the 
> illustrations and disclosure, this system is strongly reminiscent 
of 
> one of the systems in use today by the quiz bowl community.
> 
> Buzzer systems fall under these categories in various 
classification 
> systems:
> US 434/352
> EC G09B5/06
> IPC G09B5/00
> 
> I'll post .pdf files of the above-mentioned patents when I have 
time 
> at work.
> 
> Edmund