what is this thing?

LOL.. wait a minute, I resemble that remark..

Etch-a-sketch for the ham-fisted? ;-)

Look up the patent pending number?

He said that led nowhere.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

Looks like a variant of a measuring microscope; imagine each arm holding a pointer, and a photographic plate/film filling the rectangular gap. Mapmaker stuff, I think. Possibly astronomy.

I tried that, too, thinking to make myself look smart.

It didn't work.

Patent rejected presumably, or perhaps just a bogus pat pend.

My mind has been permanently warped by Wallace and Grommit: A Close Shave. Whenever I hear or see "patent pending" I hear Wallace saying "Hey! I've got patent pending on that!". Followed soon thereafter by "A sheep-mincing thing -- now _that's_ clever!".

If you don't catch the references, then you need to see the film.

It's the guts of an etch-a-scetch for siameese twins?

Newb

It sorta looks like a kind of stereotaxic frame, used in biology.

Joe Gwinn

Eww.