I remember a 1947 Jeep that had a crank operated wiper on the passenger side. The two school buses I rode when I was in elementary school had wipers that had a handle inside the bus to operate the wipers if the vacuum motor failed. One bus was a 1939 model with a Wayne body on a GMC chassis and the other was a 1946 model with a Superior body on a Chevrolet chassis. I don’t think either bus had a vacuum booster section on the fuel pump, because the wipers stalled on the windshield when the driver accelerated.
I taught an upper division/graduate course in computer science. I explained to the students that when they encountered a new piece of software or a new computer language to learn the basics of the software or the language to get it operational. They could then learn the special little features. I made an analogy with driving a car. “I know only four things about running a car”, I explained. “If I turn the steering wheel clockwise, the car goes to the right; if I turn the wheel counterclockwise, the car turns to the left. Pressing the rightmost pedal makes it go and pressing the pedal to the left makes it stop. I have no idea how the heating and air conditioning system works, so my wife roasts me in the winter and freezes me out in the summer. My son has the radio set to blast at 100 decibels and I don’t know how to change it. I have never learned to turn on either the wipers or headlights, but those gadgets are for wimps. However, knowing the four things allows me to get from one place to another in my car”. One graduate student in the class had to see my wife who worked in the graduate school office. He saw my picture on my wife’s desk and said "Let me ask you a question. Does your husband really drive a car without knowing how to work the lights or wipers?"
I never used that analogy after that. I think, though, that I could make the wipers work using Rod Knox’s method.