Origins
Part of Samuel Morse's telegraph system was an automatic recorder of the dots and dashes of the code, insribed on a paper tape by a pen moved by an electromagnet. In 1848-1850 a system of such registers was used by John Locke to improve the precision of astronomical observations of stars, providing timing precision much greater than previous methods. This method was adopted by astronomers in other countries as well. William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin's syphon recorder of 1858 was a sensitive instrument that provided a permanent record of telegraph signals through long underwater telegraph cables.
A patent for a 'Pressure Indicator and Recorder' was issued to William Henry Bristol, on September 18, 1888. Bristol went on to form the Bristol Manufacturing Company in 1889. The Bristol Company was acquired by Emerson Electric Company in March 2006, and continues to manufacture a number of different electro-mechanical chart recorders, as well as other instrumentation, measurement, and control products.
The first chart recorder for environmental monitoring was designed by American inventor J.C. Stevens while working for Leupold & Stevens in Portland, Oregon and was issued a patent for this design in 1915. Chart recorders are still used in applications where instant visual feedback is required or where users do not have the need, opportunity or technical ability to download and view data on a computer or where no electrical power is available (such as in hazardous zones on an oil rig or in remote ecological studies). However, dataloggers' decreasing cost and power requirements allow them to increasingly replace chart recorders, even in situations where battery power is the only option.
Read more about this topic: Chart Recorder
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