Signs that scroll text in lights have existed on buildings in Times Square for almost 100 years. Today these signs largely consist of LEDs controlled by computer, but in 1928 an electromechanical scrolling sign made of 14800 incandescent light bulbs was installed around the New York Times building. There had been earlier scrolling lighted signs controlled by punched paper rolls, but they were hard to update (Cressman 2018). By contrast, the Zipper, as it was popularly called, was managed by three men who took 2–3 minutes to set the entire sign (The New Yorker 1935).

The system was patented by Francis E. J. Wilde in 1927 (Wilde 1927). Wilde's invention used a separate tile or character plate for each letter. The plates were Bakelite, with the character outlines raised slightly above the plate (Dunlap 2023). The plates spelling out a message were stacked in a machine that moved them on a vertical conveyer past an array of metal springs (Falk 1953). When a spring was displaced by the raised outline of a character, the spring touched a metal contact, briefly closing an electric circuit and lighting the corresponding bulb (see the last figure below). As the plate moved along, one bulb after another would light up, giving the impression of moving text (PeriscopeFilm 2015).

Wilde and his business partner Frank C. Riley were hired by the New York Times to install the sign around the Times Building. They committed to delivering in eight weeks. Unfortunately, they hadn't worked out any of the details. Wilde and Riley worked around the clock, finishing just in time to announce the election of Herbert Hoover as president of the United States.

As time passed, Riley began to get credit for the invention. For example, a 1931 article in The American Magazine gave Riley credit with Wiley listed only as an associate (Cressman 2018). In a letter Wiley wrote, "I made Frank C. Reilly the president of my corporation but did not give him the privilege to personally masquerade as the exclusive genius…" (Wilde 1931). Relations grew strained and Wilde ultimately sold his part of the company to Riley.

The original sign was in operation for 33 years with minimal maintenance, other than changing light bulbs. It was replaced intermittently by similar electromechanical signs after the New York Times sold the building in 1961. The last incarnation was finally turned off in 1997 to make way for a digital version (Chen 1997).