SLIDE TRAY AND SLIDE POSITIONING MECHANISM

A slide projector located within a rear-screen projector housing includes a slide tray and slide positioning mechanism in cooperative relation with a gravity feed slide tray which is removably mounted on the rear-screen projector housing. The projector includes a gate having a shutter mounted for rotation to a first position blocking the optical path of the projector and for rotation to a second position at which the optical path is not blocked; indexing means, which may be selectively disabled, rotate the slide tray relative to the projector gate to successively bring slides in the slide tray, one at a time, in registration with the projector gate; first means operating in time relation with the indexing means successively feeds the slides from the slide tray into the gate, under the influence of gravity, for projection by projector and then back into the slide tray; and second means in time relation with the indexing means causes the shutter to be in its first position blocking the optical path of the projector in response to the absence of a slide in the projector gate and also causes the shutter to be in its second position enabling the optical path of the projector whenever a slide is present in the projector gate.