Abstract: An apparatus includes a fixed assembly and a reciprocating assembly. The fixed assembly includes a hopper, a first gas manifold, and a dispensing chamber, and the reciprocating assembly includes a channel assembly defining a channel conduit, a shield plate vertically aligned therewith, and a second gas manifold. The reciprocating assembly may move, in relation to the fixed assembly, to a first position to enable the channel conduit to be filled with bulk compressible material from the hopper, a second position to enable compressible material to be pushed from the channel conduit to the dispensing conduit and to be compressed in the dispensing chamber according to a first gas directed through the channel conduit by the first gas manifold, and a third position to enable the compressed material to be pushed out of the dispensing conduit according to a second gas directed through the dispensing conduit by the second gas manifold.

Abstract: A digital phase detector includes a hard limiter which transforms an incoming signal of known frequency into a binary signal at the same frequency. A reference generator produces two binary references at the signal frequency, one reference shifted 90.degree. in phase with respect to the other. The binary signal is exclusive-ORed with each reference and the exclusive-OR outputs therefrom control two counters, the counters thereby registering counts analogous to trigonometric functions of the signal phase angle. A phase modulated clock drives the counters, the phase modulation feature permitting a correction factor to be incorporated in order to cancel the error introduced by the quantized nature of the digital computations involved.