1977 · Microprocessor Total Station · Work 900 of 1,871
A road building site in England on a late summer morning, an olive-green surveying instrument on a wooden tripod, between them an angular telescope block with a large round bluish lens, all side panels plain olive, the wide oval base with a matt black field holding two small dark windows with a few red glowing segments and three rows of small round light grey keys, a surveyor in a green waxed jacket seen from directly behind, the back of his head toward the camera and bowed over the keypad, pressing a key, an open orange-red case in the grass, a red and white range pole and a yellow grader on graded earth.
What it was used for
The Wild Tachymat TC1 was an electronic total station for field work: horizontal and vertical angles and the distance to the reflector came from one instrument. The Wild Heerbrugg company archive lists it under 1977. According to Nicolàs de Hilster's description of his instrument it weighed 10 kg, 14.5 kg with its case, reached 1400 m with 11 prisms in 8 seconds and gave distances to 0.005 m; angular resolution was 3.24". Readings were stored on an accessory cassette recorder mounted on top of the instrument; units, ppm and prism constant were set with switches.
What was new
Within Wild's own range the step was consolidation: the Wild Heerbrugg archive lists the precursors separately - the T2 with digital reading in 1972, the DI3 distance meter in 1973 - and the 1977 TC1 put angle and distance in one housing, with readings going straight to tape through the cassette recorder on top. The barb: that advantage weighed 10 kg and cost, at launch, roughly 50,000 guilders according to de Hilster.
What the sources leave open: The company archive dates the TC1 to 1977; de Hilster writes "The Wild TC1 was developed in 1978" and dates his own unit to about 1980 - the archive does not say what its year stands for; whether 1977 and 1978 refer to the same event remains open. Neither source mentions a microprocessor, so that part of the technique note is unverified. No unit numbers.