Kinematoscope

The Kinematoscope (a.k.a. Motoscope) was patented in 1861 (United States Patent 31357), a protean development in the history of cinema. The invention aimed to present the illusion of motion.^[1]

The patent was filed by Coleman Sellers of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania as an "improvement in exhibiting stereoscopic pictures". Coleman applied stereoscopy to the existing principle of toy phantasmascopes using rotating discs.

A series of still stereographic images with chronologically successive stages of action were mounted on blades of a spinning paddle and viewed through slits. The slits passed under a stereoscopic viewer. The pictures were visible within a cabinet, and were not projected onto a screen.

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