Fragment 24 of 72 · drawer 02
Split-flap change trace
An imaginary mechanism trace for a row that must physically traverse unwanted characters before it can publish a new state.
- Accession
- MW-F-024
- Representative period
- Reconstructed mechanical update, 1970s
- Drawer
- Logs & traces
- Certainty
- moderate
Split-flap change trace
Reconstructed mechanical update, 1970s
Observed surface
18:40:00 row 05 receives new destination, time, and status
18:40:01 19 character modules release their stops
18:40:02 short-path characters settle first
Implied procedure
18:40:04 remaining modules continue through intermediate faces
18:40:06 final character reaches target / row becomes authoritative
18:40:07 adjacent row begins separate update
Interpretive residue
For five seconds the display was both public and knowingly unfinished.
Its sound carried a faster message: look now; your schedule may have changed.
Accountability record
Evidence beneath the reconstruction.
These institutional sources support the mechanism or historical practice interpreted above. They do not contain this reconstructed record, its wording, or its invented values.
- The Museum of Modern Art · 1996 object Flight Information Display System (Split Flap Board) A museum catalogue record for a large Solari electromechanical flight-information board, useful as evidence of the physical display as a designed public object. Open institutional record ↗
- Italian Patent and Trademark Office · institutional catalogue Italian patents and designs of historical interest An Italian government catalogue describing Solari's 1956 railway public-information installation in Liège and the electromechanical character system's public role. Open institutional record ↗