I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again — it never fails to amaze me how things are intertwined. It’s a bit like the way in which Dirk Gently makes use of “the fundamental interconnectedness of all things” to solve mysterious happenings in Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency and The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul.
As we discussed in Part 6 of my Ultimate Guide to Switch Debounce, my chum Mike Pelkey is the founder of LogiSwitch, which offers bounce-free switches, switch debounce ICs, and Arduino prototyping tools.
Mike is also the grandfather of BASE Jumping. Along with his friend, Brian Schubert, Mike made the first parachute jumps from the top of the El Capitan mountain in Yosemite National Park in 1966. But we digress…
LogiSwitch is in the process of adding a new line of tiny debounce ICs to its lineup. When I was chatting to Mike on the phone a few days ago, I told him that one of the best ways to illustrate how small these chips are would be to show one next to a regular yellow pencil. Yesterday, he sent me just such a photo.
As an aside, I had no idea as to how interesting is the history of the pencil until I read The Pencil: A History of Design and Circumstance by
As another aside, a companion tome that sits proudly on the bookshelf here in my office is How to Sharpen Pencils: A Practical & Theoretical Treatise on the Artisanal Craft of Pencil Sharpening for Writers, Artists, Contractors, Flange Turners, Anglesmiths, & Civil Servants by one of my all-time heroes, David Rees.
It’s hard to overstate the effect this book can have on people’s lives. As reader Matthew Shortridge noted in his Amazon review: “This amazing work of fanatical research and meticulous detail changed my entire relationship with the humble yellow pencils that facilitate my work in so many facets of my professional and artistic life. Often I would run up against obstacles in my process that I would attribute to fatigue, incompetence, malnourishment or just stupidity, not realizing that what was really going on was that my pencil was poorly sharpened, unbalanced, or simply sharpened in a manner that lacked awareness and a directed will. Sharpening my pencils with a greater mindfullness and a more precise skillset that I have gleaned — though not yet truly mastered — has recalibrated my relationship with my work and my creative pursuits. This, in turn, has opened my heart to joy in my relationships with colleagues, friends, and family.”
Furthermore, American journalist and author Elizabeth M. Gilbert (best known for her 2006 memoir, Eat, Pray, Love) noted: “Could I sharpen my own pencils? Sure, I could! I could also perform my own dentistry, cobble my own shoes, and smith my own tin — but why not leave such matters to real artisans, instead? I trust my bespoke pencils only to David Rees.”
I fear that you fear that we are in danger of wandering off into the weeds, but my meandering musings really are returning to the fundamental interconnectedness of all things. Take another look at the image of the LogiSwitch IC next to the pencil. What’s the first thing that catches your eye? Yes. I agree. Me too. It’s the fact that the pencil lead is so roughly sharpened.
I asked Mike about this, and he replied somewhat sheepishly, “I sharpened it with a little plastic sharpener.” Hmmm. I’m reasonably sure that David Rees would have something sharp — a cutting comment, if you will — to say about this.
A little while later, Mike followed up by saying: “As an engineer, you probably remember the Pencil Pointer product. That was invented by my grandfather’s brother, Uncle Ed Cayo. He retired on royalties from it and traveled the world to live happily ever after.”
Well, color me impressed. It turns out that Mike’s grandfather, Julius Nelson Cayo, founded the Cayo Manufacturing Company as a metal stamping business in Benton Harbor, Michigan. Like his brother Ed, Julius invented a cornucopia of wild and wonderful things in his time, including a whistling yo-yo called the Musical Ka-Yo (so as not to infringe upon the Duncan Toy Company’s trademark of the term “yo-yo”).
The Cayo Manufacturing Company began making Julius’s whistling yo-yos in the early 1930s. Check out this Musical Ka-Yo that currently resides in the National Museum of American History.
But let us not get distracted, because Pencil Pointers are the point of this column. I immediately had a quick Google, which led me to feast my eyes on this video of an antique Tru-Point Pencil Pointer.
I could so use one of these to help with the drawings I’m creating for my Electronics & Microcontrollers for Absolute Beginners series of articles on Hackaday.io. I decided that hand-drawn sketches would be less threatening to beginners, but keeping a sharp point on one’s colored pencils is proving to be a pain in the nether regions.
Now I understand where Mike gets his entrepreneurial and inventive leanings from. What I fail to understand is why Mike doesn’t have one of Uncle Ed’s Pencil Pointers sitting on his desk. If Mike had been in possession of one of these little beauties, he could have used it to put a decent point on his pencil, thereby saving me from having to write this column and you from having to read it.
When I studied mechanical drawing at university we were expected to sharpen our mechanical pencils on strips of sandpaper, specially manufactured for the purpose If memory serves you had to make sure you didn’t get graphite dust on your hands or there would be handprints all over the drawing. The pencil pointer would have been much better!
I agree. I often use a pencil sharpener to trip the wood, and then use a piece of fine sandpaper to maintain the point until it’s time to use the pencil sharpener again. I saw one of these antique Pencil Pointers on eBay for about $15.00 and I was sorely tempted, but the shipping was going to be another $14 and I have a lot of sandpaper LOL
Had to dig through a few boxes to find one. Did they look like this one?
The Americans developed a ball point pen for use in their space program. The Soviets saved the development using pencils. The pencil approach is always presented as the more elegant solution, but now that I think about it, maybe not.
they would have to have had some method of capturing the wood and graphite shavings from sharpening. There are examples of sharpeners that contain the debris, in use on earth, but it would have to be sealed. And then what happens if your point breaks while you are writing, to say nothing of the tiny graphite dust generated as you write.
I am sure there Is the potential of small blobs of ink floating around with the ball point system. Nothing is simple in space!
I can only imagine when the ball point pen was invented — some people would have welcomed it as a major innovation — but others who were stuck on traditional ink pwn technology would have decried it as a sign of decadent times. Space is dangerous enough without having particles of conducting graphite flying around.
I can only imagine when the ball point pen was invented
Did you use to call ballpoint pens a “Biro” in the UK? A Mr Biro introduced the first successful ball point pen around 1931 although apparently the first patent was 50 years earlier (not his).
A Mr Bich bought the patent from Biro and now we have “Bic” pens.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%c3%a1szl%c3%b3_B%c3%adr%c3%b3
Yes — we used to call them Biros in the UK — now I use Bic pens and Bic razors — but not at the same time, you understand. I understand why Mr Bich didn’t use his full name — it’s a lot more politically correct to say “Throw that Bic over here” than…
When I enrolled in a British-styled immersion language grade school in Montevideo in 1958, all of our work was required to be done with fountain pens, save drawing class. Even maths. Ink. And the birome, ball point pen, was strictly forbidden.
For those three years, I could loaf in class by refilling my pen.
I’m sure that a lot of the “old guard” thought that not writing with fountain pens marked “the end of civilization as we know it” LOL
Edward Cayo is my grandfather.. my mother Jacqueline Cayo Hull one of his twin daughters is still alive at age 95.. Ed’s wife Elizabeth, my grandmother lived to be 103. I remember my grandmother commenting how upset she was that after Ed died his partner let the patent run out and Boston pencil company came along and copied it.. from what I understand there is no better sharpener than this pencil pointer than my grandfathers invention. It has been used for decades by architects and draftsmen. My grandfather came from a French Family of 10 children where each one, including the women had their own businesses.. I am proud to have him as my grandfather. He also had many other inventions.. stay tuned.
Hi Marilyn — it’s GREAT to hear from you — I’m going to email Mike Pelkey to let him know you saw my blog and commented on it (Mike and I are currently working on a project together).
Thank you for this article. I am the Grandson (My Mother’s Father) of Ed Cayo. I learned a lot from it.
Unfortunately, my grandfather passed away when I was 2 years old, so I have no memories.
In addition to being an inventor, my grandfather was a scratch golfer and even rolled a perfect 300 in bowling. He was very athletic.
I remember that my father always had the pencil pointer on his desk. He was an accountant and would write onto the green ledgers used decades ago.
Hi Randy — did you see the comment from Marilyn and my response above? I think Mike is going to be very excited to hear you both read this blog and commented.