That is probably the best bit of bumph to come out of FI. If nothing else, FI has a cracking PR department :)

alistair

On 2013-08-30, at 4:47 AM, Jim Felder wrote:

> Harrumph. These iPad things are far from having proven themselves as a lasting technological success. The telegraph, on the other hand, has been around for nearly a century and a half. While the directors at Bell Industries bows down to the likes of Tesla and Jobs, we at Felder Enterprises hold Samuel Morse and Daniel Farenheit as our guiding lights. We are currently looking into a flip-top bakelite cover for a console-mounted telegraph key. Some serious design work was done and actually used in all the Luftwaffe craft that were outfitted with a telegraph about the time the the British began using them in their Spads. Felder Enterprises has obtained shop drawings and has viewed actual examples of these covers, which prevent dust and oxidation from encroaching upon the sensitive brass leaves of the mechanism, but are always ready to transmit with a single bat of the glove. None of this "screen-swiping" that the lastest generation of frippery and gee-gaws with touchy-feely screens demand.
> 
> And--get this--the proposed bakeline telgraph key cover, when reversed all the way over its pivot, will operate a microswitch that will illuminate a slide rule clip with ample room for the device and piano key felt to keep from shattering the ivory edges at low temperatures!! What's your big move now, Bell?
> 
> A polite note: As always, though, the machine work of Bell Industries�if misguided in its direction�is first class.
> 
> Jim Felder
> Executive Chief Evangelist
> Felder Industries Eastern Division