From: "Richard L. Field" <field@pipeline.com>
Date: Wed, 22 Jan 1997 02:29:10 -0800 (PST)
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: "Technical data" exemptions in new crypto regs
Message-ID: <1.5.4.16.19970122053234.44ff22a8@pop.pipeline.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


  That would be Samuel Slater, who built his mill in Pawtucket, Rhode Island
(still there, on Roosevelt Avenue) in 1793.  He reproduced his former boss's
factory from memory in order to collect on a bounty offered in the US on the
export-restricted patent.

  - Richard Field



At 06:39 PM 1/21/97 -0500, Sean Roach <roach_s@alph.swosu.edu> wrote:

>This has often reminded me of something that occurred around 1776.
>I can't remember if it was before or after.
>Remember how the colonies got sophisticated spinning gear?
>I believe it was spinning gear.
>Great Britain had a ban on the export of functional models, diagrams or
>manufacturing instructions to one particular class of equipment.  This was
>so that they could maintain the monopoly on cheaply made cloth, holding the
>outlying colonies in line by maintaining a dependancy.
>One man memorized the structure of one of these machines and then came to
>the American shores, where he reproduced it workably.
>
>I can't remember the name of the man or the machine, just that it was used
>in the manufacture of cloth, the "spinning jenny" i think.  Nor can I
>remember the date.