DETAILED DESCRIPTION This invention relates to locking mechanism for securing against removal various items of equipment, for example, laboratory equipment such as microscopes, office equipment such as typewriters and calculating machines, and various other equipment which is desirably movable to a limited extent for convenience but needs to be secured against removal.
The present invention provides means for securing several such items by cables to a single key-controlled locking device.
Such device may be mounted to a support by a mounting screw which is concealed and rendered inaccessible by the key controlled mechanism of such device.
In accordance with the invention, a plurality of separate cables, preferably four or more, are respectively secured against separation from a plurality of items of equipment, as by being attached to, passed through, or otherwise connected with the several items.
The cables have end members shaped for engagement in a locking device, and such end members are secured in separate receptacles in a lock body by a key-controlled keeper.
Preferably, the cable end members are circumferentially grooved prongs received in separate bores in the body, and the keeper is a key-removable core inserted in a core chamber which is partially intersected by the cable-receiving bores, so that the core itself engages in the grooves of the cable end members to lock them in place.
Four or more of such cable ends can be locked in the same lock body by a single available and standard key-removable core.
A mounting screw access hole desirably traverse the core chamber so that the core in the chamber also blocks access to a lock-body mounting screw inserted through such hole.
As a modification, the key-removable core, instead of serving itself as the keeper, is operable to actuate a separate keeper movably mounted in the lock body and arranged to engage with several cable end members.
In such case, the core may be removable only to provide access to a mounting screw.
In some circumstances, as where one or more cables attached to separate pieces of equipment are passed through openings in a supporting table, the lock body need not itself be fixed to a support
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I/O Systems 
