I used this machine extensively when I was a surveyor in the army’s artillery devision. We calculated the coordinates of guns and targets with it. We had to operate it blind and blazing fast. 0 to 5, 5 clicks from the top. 6 to 9, all the way down and back up 3 clicks. The handle on the right was held between your bend index and middle finger. Next to log and sine tablets. That was back in 1972.
@@manikyum Well, the Netherlands army doesn’t have the reputation of being real “killers”. In those days we were drafted and trained to fight against the Russians. Even in 1972 they were “the enemy”. How true ……
@@allejandrodavid5222 In that context - no. It is a literal click the mechanism makes when you push the lever down to input a number. First click - 1, second click - 2, etc. And to input without looking at the display you listen to those clicks.
I used a slide rule on my Chem exam just for kicks. Much more practical than an adding machine. Much smaller, lighter, quieter, and much faster to do any operation other than addition or subtraction.
@@richardhall9815 What I find hilarious is I've seen a race car team use slide rules. However, what's amazing is they were using it to calculate fuel burn rates so they would know on what lap their driver would run dry. The system was amazingly accurate to within 1-2 laps! I have never used a slide rule so I don't know how they used one to calculate their driver's fuel mileage.
Exam proctor: you cannot use DIMMs latest model, it would give you an unfair adavantage over the other students, only the 1948 and prior models are allowd during this exam Student: ...
This is a great way to learn division! I recall the moment when I finally figured out how manually dividing big numbers worked out, and this perfectly visualized this.
@@PlasticBubbleCosplayComputers deal with arithmetic very very differently. Computers work with base 2 and everything has to be designed using boolean logic with logic gates. Read up on an ALU or play the puzzle game Turing complete. Turing Complete will give you a working knowledge of how computers work at the lowest, least abstracted level. ALUs are circuits for dealing with arithmetic.
They are neat, if you like this go look at the Curta Type 1 and Type 2...I have a Type 2 and it's a marvel of engineering with a pretty wild backstory.
@Benjamin Pilgrim However an everyday pocket calculator is: - boring - uninteresting - you can’t see any of the mechanisms, it’s all just silicon components - widespread With a mechanical calculator you can: - easily see how it works and every single moving component of it - they sound cool because of all the clicks and clacks of mechanical devices inside it - not very common
@@mega_micro However an everyday pocket calculator is: - boring - uninteresting - you can’t see any of the mechanisms, it’s all just silicon components - widespread With a mechanical calculator you can: - easily see how it works and every single moving component of it - they sound cool because of all the clicks and clacks of mechanical devices inside it - not very common
I used to buy lumber from a lumberyard in Argentina and the owner used a similar calculator to determine the price based on the type and dimensions of the wood. The funny thing was that he had to use Imperial units and do the conversions to metric on this calculator because in Argentina the metric systems is prevalent (except for lumber, pipes, fittings, electrical conduits, and electrical boxes).
This machine can do so much more! You totally missed the multiplication of big numbers, e.g. 2345 x 4567. You don't enter 4567 and turn 2345 times, you only turn 5 times, then shift to the right, turn 4 times, shift to the right, turn 3 times, shift to the right, turn 2 times. Basically you do it like you would do it on paper! To check your result, your second multiplier should now show up in the turn counter. You can get a division result with decimals if you enter the dividend as far left as possible (316400000 / 13 = 24338461; you just have to remember where to put the decimal point). You can even calculate square roots using Toepler's algorithm (not much more difficult than doing a division), but this space is too small to explain it. Google is your friend!
We had mechanical computers like this in the 30s. A lot of people don't know this, but the fire control centers on WWII battleships used mechanical computers to calculate firing solutions.
As an aspiring mechanical engineering student my mind is just totally blown right now. How tf..... how was this made? How does it work? How did they make it so compact without rendering it fragile? Even if I took this thing apart slowly I dont know if I could even begin to figure this thing out. Things like this are exactly why I'm choosing this as my major :)
It’s crazy to understand that back then these calculators weren’t even designed with 3D printers or CAD software or anything! They were all designed with pen and paper math, LOTS OF MEASUREMENTS, etc. I someday hope to design something mechanical but IT’S IMPOSSIBLE TO BUILD SOMETHING AS COMPLICATED AS THAT WITHOUT MODERN TOOLS LIKE 3D PRINTERS.
@@kato_dsrdr No, it’s made with all the mechanical devices like gears and axles and stuff. If it was made using logic gates the thing would be HUGE and electromechanical, not mechanical.
My first job was an accountant at the original Coopers & Lybrand in 1971. Out audit files were often inches thick and were full of tables and schedules, all of which had to be checked for accuracy becuase they formed the basis of the balance sheets and P&Ls of the companies we were auditing. We gave the file to a comptometer operator who used one of these as well as a comptometer machine. I good operator was a highly skilled person and very well paid. They could go through a big file in less than a day. And they usually found mistakes. They did it all blind...they just ran down the lists by eye and both hands were going flat out. It was amazing to watch.
There is no physical computing machine that can add a column of printed figures faster than a Comptometer operator. "Whaddya mean? A spreadsheet can add them in a microsecond!" But someone had to type those numbers into the spreadsheet, one snail-like digit at a time!
Yes, but with hundreds of schedules and tables all in reports, it would take you a month to enter them all into spreadsheets so the the computer could do all the math. In the meantime, annual reports would have been sent to the printers. @@PopeLando
Brings memories❤! We did the bulk of our technical calculations with pencil and paper PLUS a slide rule during my study years. But there were times when the slide rule resolution did not suffice and the pencil on paper felt too cumbersome. A case in point was the exercise of determining the Rydman constant. My room mate studied items related to surveying and he could at times borrow a mechanical calculator from the school for his needs. I started drooling for one myself and eventually found one just barely affordable used unit somewhere. It was brand "Brunsviga", with probably a couple digits less than the unit shown in 8:02 this video. Another one available, a "Facit" was way beyond my financial means. So I used the Brunsviga for the calculations where the slide rule was not adequate, until my graduation and a little longer. A special algorithm that my room mate had shown me produced Square Roots! Anyway, at some point Hewlett Packard came out with their famous HP35 scientific/engineering pocket calculator. I bought one and was extremely happy with it, even though it did not provide support for drafting and ruler feature like some slide rules had done. Anyway, I decided to give the Brunsviga to my brother, who then took care of our farm book keeping. So, the second (?) hand Brunsviga found yet another use. If you can dig out and demonstrate the square root algorithm in operation, I believe that would be well worth another video!
Division operation looks tedious after a while. A simple straightforward test of these mechanical calc's accuracy is to multiply 12345679 times 45, the answer should always be 555555555 on these machines.
Thanks for posting this video I remember using a similar machine to this one in maths class when I was a pupil at Oldborough Comprehensive School Loose Maidstone Kent UK in 1977 or 1978 - I was around 11 or 12 years old and I never did fathom how to use one properly, (too complicated for me). Amazing how technology has moved on in such a relatively short period of time.
That's a nice looking calculator. I have a number of Odhners and Facits. Mechanical calculators all work in pretty much the same way (with the main differences being in the operation of the back transfer mechanism). A nice video.
Honestly I was kind of surprised at how simple it was for you to use this thing. I wish I had a mechanical calculator, they’d fit right in with my typewriters!
today I encountered one in a little agriculture museum, and I played with it for a while it was a pity that I haven't figured out how it works. I have to go back to that house again. ((:
I grew up at the point where transistors were just starting to take over... I learned to use slide rules, adding machines (Similar to yours) and now obsolete transistor calculators. In high school, typewriters were still used, small (desktop) computers were just coming out.
I have one of these - different make, same principle - bought on a fleamarket years ago. It doesn't work for one reason: metal gears running on nylon and wearing it away. Still, I didn't pay much for it. I have an idea that the older, pre-nylon, models might work better today. The same applies to old cameras: around 1960 the dreaded plastic gears appeared and the life expectancy went out the window.
Always wowed me how much we have become From mechanical to digital electronics calculator My scientific calculator still functioning and battery didn't run out till now
My Monroe Model K made in 1922 is similar except it is large and heavy. It has more capacity. It has outlived every generation of electronic computer. Still works perfectly. You earn your answer. Mine has an 8 decade keyboard, 8 counter dials and 16 accumulator dials (more than Microsoft Excel).
to prevent sliding on the table with bigger numbers, bolt it down. if you are not strong enough to turn the crank, remove the crank knob, take a meter of a scaffolding pipe and slide it over the crank. precise and accuratw technology. amazing.
I've always found analogue technology more fascinating than digital. I'm sure the science that led to digital technology is more impressive than any analogue, but the ingenuity to create this analogue stuff just blows my mind
Almost the twin to my Brunsviga 13RM, which I bought from a typewriter store with the first paycheck from my first job. It was obsolete even then but I had to have it, and I still do. BTW, you're overshooting: on the last turn, let go of the knob partway around and it will stop and latch on the center post with a satisfying clunk! You can really wail, then.
Curiosity got the best of me, and I figured out that this machine has exactly 9.56805815563 bytes (76.5444652451 bits) of "RAM". Explanation: First, what could be considered RAM in this machine? In a modern computer, RAM would simply be the memory the CPU uses for storing calculations (disregarding the caches and CPU registers). The analog for this machine would be the accumulator and counting register within the carriage, as those are the memory used for storing calculations. The accumulator contains 13 base 10 digits. That means that each of those 13 wheels can take on a value between 0 and 9 for 10 total possible values. The counting register is a little more tricky. It can take on values between 0 and 9 for addition, but it can also take on red values between 0 and 9 for subtraction. Does this mean it can take on 10 + 10 = 20 values? No, not quite. Addition and subtraction both share common 0 and 9 values, subtracting 2 from the previous total. That means that the counting register contains 8 base 18 digits. We now know that the carriage can represent a total of (10 ^ 13) * (18 ^ 8) = 1.1019960576 * 10 ^ 23 unique values. The minimum number of base 2 digits (or bits) require to hold this number is 77. The problem is that 2 ^ 77 can represent more values than (10 ^ 13) * (18 ^ 8) can, (2 ^ 77) - (10 ^ 13) * (18 ^ 8) = 4.09161216918 * 10 ^ 22 values to be exact. So we can't say the answer is 77 bits. To get the exact number of bits required, we need to solve the following equation for x: 2 ^ x = (10 ^ 13) * (18 ^ 8) by taking the log base 2 of each side. This gives us x = 13 * log base 2 of 10 + 8 * log base 2 of 18. This doesn’t, however, give us a great intuition for what’s going on. Instead, let’s figure out exactly how many bits of information each wheel in both the accumulator and counting register represents. Let's look at the accumulator wheels first. We know that each wheel can represent 10 total values. 3 bits, or 2 ^ 3, can store 8 values, while 4 bits, or 2 ^ 4, can store 16 values. So the number of bits is between 3 and 4. We're looking for the number of bits it takes to represent exactly 10 values. We can find this by solving for x in the following equation: 2 ^ x = 10. This gives us log base 2 of 10, which is roughly equal to 3.322, the number of bits required to represent 10 values. Repeating the same process for the counting register wheels, we get that each wheel represents log base 2 of 18 bits, roughly 4.170. The accumulator contains 13 wheels, and the counting register contains 8 wheels. The resulting expression to find the exact number of bits of "RAM" this machine has is 13 * (log base 2 of 10) + 8 * (log base 2 of 18), the same equation from earlier, except we now know what each term means. This finally gives us an exact value of 76.5444652451 bits, or 9.56805815563 bytes. And no, I don’t have a life. :c
You're exactly right. I was looking at it from just a theoretical perspective. The trouble is that the base 10 and 18 digits on this machine don't perfectly translate to an integer base 2 value. In terms of "real" bits, it would have to be rounded up to 77, but keep in mind that 77 bits can store ever so slightly more information than this calculator's memory can hold.
I'd say you do have a pretty cool life. Here you are, taking time to share knowledge with people on social media, on your own initiative. Basic logic; one cannot learn if others are not willing to teach.
I think these kind of calculators were too expensive for high school students. Even a high quality slide ruler was about as expensive as smart phones are today.
i remember that old machines in stores when i was a kid, and the complex sound they produced (listen to 'money' pink floyd, some of the sounds are there) the machine in this video is so alike that in a way
Actually I have an extremely similar looking Soviet version that is called ''Felix'' and it works very similarly to this too. It is less complex and doesn't have the cool features that this one has, like the convenient levers to push the lower panel around. Instead it has a janky lever like thingy that moves it left or right (One number order each push) depending on in which direction (where) you push it which tends to get stuck a lot... Also it has little propellers with roughly similar shape as the Russian ф character which do all the resetting. This one's definitely more sophisticated, but I really love mine too, I have it alongside two other ones which I still- call Felix, but don't actually have their name displayed (Apparently they were produced after 1972 or something after which the original Felix became redundant, and fittingly they are much more sophisticated, with actual number keyboard and front-back buttons that shift the order around. They also have a much boxier look, sleeker for the lack of a better word). They're much more intuitive and fun to play around and worth with, but I still prefer the almost alien spaceship look of the old Felix. Speaking of which, my Felix very cool teal color, even though I've seen white, grey and black ones too.
I know that's a joke, but in reality, i don't think it would do anything. Division is done by subtraction here, so subtracting 0 from something does nothing.
Not too interesting actually, it would just flip the one in the 1 quadrilionth place, but since it doesn't display numbers that big it would overflow with a garbage output of mostly 9s.
In Back To The Future 3 (SPOILERS) the DeLorean is destroyed, and Doc Brown comes back with a time machine built into an old steam train. THIS is the sort of date input control that I imagine it had.
Omg that is hurting my head trying to keep up 😆 I’d rather study calculus and organic chemistry then learn SQL. Aside from that I love the sound of it and would love to hear a classroom at work with this
When I was in typing class many many years ago, there was an electric motor version of this calculator. Someone put it on 0x0 and started it. It kept running, of course, and he let it go until it started smoking. BTW, we had 4 IBM electric typewriters with the ball head. All the rest were manual.
It's amazing how such a machine evolved into what we know now as a computer. And amazingly, the way CPU works is basically the same - you have your input/output stores (registers), a component that does arithmetic (ALU) and a component that makes the machine run - the clock in a CPU, the rotating lever in this device. Also, the action at 0:50 with that lever, the sound, it was really rewarding. Pretty cool machine.
Wow, the last time I heard about having a remainder when doing division was when I was in elementary school. Kinda crazy how remainders are just not a thing in the real world when you think about it and I've been working in a lot of tech related fields for decades.
Que pesar que sea en inglés . Ese es una calculadora del año 68 mas o menos , hacia las cuentas un tío político , no era tan alta pero lo veía trabajando en sus cuentas . Que recuerdo tan hermoso .
question. so for division operation can be done in 1000s and get answer fast. but lets say we are multiplying, only possible to rotate clockwise and counter only up by 1. example, 342x130, you have to turn 130 times to get answer. right?
I used this machine extensively when I was a surveyor in the army’s artillery devision. We calculated the coordinates of guns and targets with it. We had to operate it blind and blazing fast. 0 to 5, 5 clicks from the top. 6 to 9, all the way down and back up 3 clicks. The handle on the right was held between your bend index and middle finger. Next to log and sine tablets. That was back in 1972.
@@manikyum Well, the Netherlands army doesn’t have the reputation of being real “killers”. In those days we were drafted and trained to fight against the Russians. Even in 1972 they were “the enemy”. How true ……
Clicks = kilometers?
@@allejandrodavid5222 In that context - no. It is a literal click the mechanism makes when you push the lever down to input a number. First click - 1, second click - 2, etc. And to input without looking at the display you listen to those clicks.
Is there some sort of range chart for it?
Amazing insight, thanks
Pulls out this machine during the SAT...
lol
I used a slide rule on my Chem exam just for kicks. Much more practical than an adding machine. Much smaller, lighter, quieter, and much faster to do any operation other than addition or subtraction.
@@richardhall9815 What I find hilarious is I've seen a race car team use slide rules. However, what's amazing is they were using it to calculate fuel burn rates so they would know on what lap their driver would run dry. The system was amazingly accurate to within 1-2 laps! I have never used a slide rule so I don't know how they used one to calculate their driver's fuel mileage.
Shot by desk neighbour
Exam proctor: you cannot use DIMMs latest model, it would give you an unfair adavantage over the other students, only the 1948 and prior models are allowd during this exam
Student: ...
I love the sounds this thing makes, almost makes me want to buy one just to use it
@Cat_EditsssI would love to have a mechanical calculator too, and yes I’m also late to saying things too.
@@lemoneer7474 I would love to have a mechanical calculator too, and yes I’m also late to saying things too.
ASMR calculator
@@lastknownwolfmy thoughts exactly… the sounds would make great ASMR content. And I’m late saying this.
Totally same! but I am scared I would play with it only for a couple of days and either go on the display or attic. Sorry I am late saying this.
This is a great way to learn division! I recall the moment when I finally figured out how manually dividing big numbers worked out, and this perfectly visualized this.
Definitely! I would have never thought of this mechanical process -- likely was the basis for the engineers when developing electronic computers.
@@PlasticBubbleCosplayComputers deal with arithmetic very very differently. Computers work with base 2 and everything has to be designed using boolean logic with logic gates.
Read up on an ALU or play the puzzle game Turing complete. Turing Complete will give you a working knowledge of how computers work at the lowest, least abstracted level. ALUs are circuits for dealing with arithmetic.
This machine is a piece of artwork
It’s mass produced. Nope
@@WELLINGTON20 who says it can't be art can't be mass produced. The truth is that it's a work of art and engineering.
They are neat, if you like this go look at the Curta Type 1 and Type 2...I have a Type 2 and it's a marvel of engineering with a pretty wild backstory.
@@WildChildMcCloud amen. A design can be art. Looks like functionally, it’s highly impractical … which might make it art as well! ;-)
@@WELLINGTON20 that fact that such a capable machine could be mass produced makes it more than a masterpiece.
I do so love technology that doesn't need to be plugged into anything.
You should see the mechanical calculators that you do plug in, they’re awesome to see working.
baterries
@Benjamin Pilgrim However an everyday pocket calculator is:
- boring
- uninteresting
- you can’t see any of the mechanisms, it’s all just silicon components
- widespread
With a mechanical calculator you can:
- easily see how it works and every single moving component of it
- they sound cool because of all the clicks and clacks of mechanical devices inside it
- not very common
@@timehunter9467 Like the Friden STW10?
@@mega_micro However an everyday pocket calculator is:
- boring
- uninteresting
- you can’t see any of the mechanisms, it’s all just silicon components
- widespread
With a mechanical calculator you can:
- easily see how it works and every single moving component of it
- they sound cool because of all the clicks and clacks of mechanical devices inside it
- not very common
I was taught statistics in 1961 using a similar machine.
Nice
@@qwertykeyboard5901 nice
nice
Nice
Nice
I used to buy lumber from a lumberyard in Argentina and the owner used a similar calculator to determine the price based on the type and dimensions of the wood. The funny thing was that he had to use Imperial units and do the conversions to metric on this calculator because in Argentina the metric systems is prevalent (except for lumber, pipes, fittings, electrical conduits, and electrical boxes).
The moveable "bottom display" is called the carriage, just like on a typewriter.
I love the portability of this calculator, it's great especially for the 50's.
Imagine coming to an exam with this thing :D
I would
I did! UE, in NZ, 1976.
In fact, I still have 3. Only one in full working order.
@@DB-thats-me damn
@@DB-thats-me cool
This machine can do so much more! You totally missed the multiplication of big numbers, e.g. 2345 x 4567. You don't enter 4567 and turn 2345 times, you only turn 5 times, then shift to the right, turn 4 times, shift to the right, turn 3 times, shift to the right, turn 2 times. Basically you do it like you would do it on paper! To check your result, your second multiplier should now show up in the turn counter.
You can get a division result with decimals if you enter the dividend as far left as possible (316400000 / 13 = 24338461; you just have to remember where to put the decimal point). You can even calculate square roots using Toepler's algorithm (not much more difficult than doing a division), but this space is too small to explain it. Google is your friend!
We actually used this in the bank in the 70's when doing forex transactions. I was quite a wizz on it.
Rene McEvoy "forex transactions"?
foreign currency exchange rate calculations
Rene McEvoy Oh I see now!
By the way, it is WHIZ, not WIZZ. Taking a wizzthat is when you take a piss😉
Jeffrey314159 Where I come from, we use the word wizz to indicate that we are excellent. We therefore do not use it as a verb.
I thought that was Wiz, too. Like wizard.
We had mechanical computers like this in the 30s. A lot of people don't know this, but the fire control centers on WWII battleships used mechanical computers to calculate firing solutions.
I heard but those mechanical computers sure took a lot of variables and is pretty accurate too
@@nitsu2947 I mean, they could ballpark a 23-mile shot. So...
As an aspiring mechanical engineering student my mind is just totally blown right now. How tf..... how was this made? How does it work? How did they make it so compact without rendering it fragile? Even if I took this thing apart slowly I dont know if I could even begin to figure this thing out. Things like this are exactly why I'm choosing this as my major :)
th-cam.com/video/YXMuJco8onQ/w-d-xo.html
Take a look at the Curta calculator. th-cam.com/video/ZDn_DDsBWws/w-d-xo.html
It's made with logic gates.. But I don't know how they made it so compact..
It’s crazy to understand that back then these calculators weren’t even designed with 3D printers or CAD software or anything!
They were all designed with pen and paper math, LOTS OF MEASUREMENTS, etc.
I someday hope to design something mechanical but IT’S IMPOSSIBLE TO BUILD SOMETHING AS COMPLICATED AS THAT WITHOUT MODERN TOOLS LIKE 3D PRINTERS.
@@kato_dsrdr No, it’s made with all the mechanical devices like gears and axles and stuff.
If it was made using logic gates the thing would be HUGE and electromechanical, not mechanical.
For some reason I am more impressed with this than I am with modern digital calculators!
My first job was an accountant at the original Coopers & Lybrand in 1971. Out audit files were often inches thick and were full of tables and schedules, all of which had to be checked for accuracy becuase they formed the basis of the balance sheets and P&Ls of the companies we were auditing.
We gave the file to a comptometer operator who used one of these as well as a comptometer machine. I good operator was a highly skilled person and very well paid. They could go through a big file in less than a day. And they usually found mistakes. They did it all blind...they just ran down the lists by eye and both hands were going flat out. It was amazing to watch.
There is no physical computing machine that can add a column of printed figures faster than a Comptometer operator. "Whaddya mean? A spreadsheet can add them in a microsecond!" But someone had to type those numbers into the spreadsheet, one snail-like digit at a time!
Yes, but with hundreds of schedules and tables all in reports, it would take you a month to enter them all into spreadsheets so the the computer could do all the math. In the meantime, annual reports would have been sent to the printers. @@PopeLando
Always a pleasure to watch mechanical contraptions like this work. Glad I came by this.
Brings memories❤! We did the bulk of our technical calculations with pencil and paper PLUS a slide rule during my study years. But there were times when the slide rule resolution did not suffice and the pencil on paper felt too cumbersome. A case in point was the exercise of determining the Rydman constant. My room mate studied items related to surveying and he could at times borrow a mechanical calculator from the school for his needs. I started drooling for one myself and eventually found one just barely affordable used unit somewhere. It was brand "Brunsviga", with probably a couple digits less than the unit shown in 8:02 this video. Another one available, a "Facit" was way beyond my financial means. So I used the Brunsviga for the calculations where the slide rule was not adequate, until my graduation and a little longer. A special algorithm that my room mate had shown me produced Square Roots! Anyway, at some point Hewlett Packard came out with their famous HP35 scientific/engineering pocket calculator. I bought one and was extremely happy with it, even though it did not provide support for drafting and ruler feature like some slide rules had done. Anyway, I decided to give the Brunsviga to my brother, who then took care of our farm book keeping. So, the second (?) hand Brunsviga found yet another use. If you can dig out and demonstrate the square root algorithm in operation, I believe that would be well worth another video!
I'm seriously impressed !
Keep that calculator, always
Division operation looks tedious after a while. A simple straightforward test of these mechanical calc's accuracy is to multiply 12345679 times 45, the answer should always be 555555555 on these machines.
Thanks for posting this video I remember using a similar machine to this one in maths class when I was a pupil at Oldborough Comprehensive School Loose Maidstone Kent UK in 1977 or 1978 - I was around 11 or 12 years old and I never did fathom how to use one properly, (too complicated for me). Amazing how technology has moved on in such a relatively short period of time.
Just had to reply as I live just down the road from Loose in Maidstone.
@@harkendoich2 Thanks for stopping by to say Hello, small world isn't it.
Wow. This just made me smile in awe.
Being 2000's kid I was amazed to see how calculators are mechanically created in olden days . Amazing machine
That's a nice looking calculator. I have a number of Odhners and Facits. Mechanical calculators all work in pretty much the same way (with the main differences being in the operation of the back transfer mechanism). A nice video.
Honestly I was kind of surprised at how simple it was for you to use this thing. I wish I had a mechanical calculator, they’d fit right in with my typewriters!
Im as impressed by these kinds of machines as I am by modern smart phones. Human are truly the most clever creatures in the garden.
today I encountered one in a little agriculture museum, and I played with it for a while it was a pity that I haven't figured out how it works. I have to go back to that house again. ((:
This is a great demo of how a lot of math ends up coming down to addition and subtraction. Gotta love mechanical calculators.
The division-Part is sooo clever. Amazing to see such a cool thing.
This is why my math teacher always said i wouldnt be walking around with a calculator in my pocket.
I find fascinating what different mechanical calculators do if you try to divide by zero!
You subtract 0, and you'll have to turn for all eternity until the bell rings.
I grew up at the point where transistors were just starting to take over... I learned to use slide rules, adding machines (Similar to yours) and now obsolete transistor calculators. In high school, typewriters were still used, small (desktop) computers were just coming out.
Teachers who say "you won't always have your phone with you" when I pull this out
How many GB of RAM ?
this is mechanical, I don't think it will have RAM
over 9000!
No Im patient ~
I know you were just joking, but I figured out that it has exactly 9.56805815563 bytes (76.5444652451 bits) of "RAM".
***** that's a lot
The operation is basically identical as the Curta. Very neat.
I have one of these - different make, same principle - bought on a fleamarket years ago. It doesn't work for one reason: metal gears running on nylon and wearing it away. Still, I didn't pay much for it. I have an idea that the older, pre-nylon, models might work better today. The same applies to old cameras: around 1960 the dreaded plastic gears appeared and the life expectancy went out the window.
We had these machines in the Science Lab when I was at school. We had Odhner, but they were very similar
This is why when electronic calculators came out in the early 70's , we considered them so amazing.
divide by 0 please
It's division performed with subtraction, so you have to spin it counter-clockwise infinitely
@@어질어질하네-k8h so attach a motor to the thing
You need to leave!
@@어질어질하네-k8h not infinitely. only until the wear on the machine causes it to fall apart.
Always wowed me how much we have become
From mechanical to digital electronics calculator
My scientific calculator still functioning and battery didn't run out till now
My Monroe Model K made in 1922 is similar except it is large and heavy. It has more capacity. It has outlived every generation of electronic computer. Still works perfectly. You earn your answer. Mine has an 8 decade keyboard, 8 counter dials and 16 accumulator dials (more than Microsoft Excel).
to prevent sliding on the table with bigger numbers, bolt it down. if you are not strong enough to turn the crank, remove the crank knob, take a meter of a scaffolding pipe and slide it over the crank. precise and accuratw technology. amazing.
I've always found analogue technology more fascinating than digital. I'm sure the science that led to digital technology is more impressive than any analogue, but the ingenuity to create this analogue stuff just blows my mind
Thanks for putting this up, and going through it so well explained. I will play with mom's, and make plans to make a steam-powered One.
I love Mechanical engineering ❤
Great video
I'm sold! I'm heading down to Target to buy a Dimm mechanical calculator. I hope they're not out.
Almost the twin to my Brunsviga 13RM, which I bought from a typewriter store with the first paycheck from my first job. It was obsolete even then but I had to have it, and I still do. BTW, you're overshooting: on the last turn, let go of the knob partway around and it will stop and latch on the center post with a satisfying clunk! You can really wail, then.
When the teacher says "no electronic devices" allowed during the test
Insane stuff. We need one in management control!
I want one of these so bad! This is awesome
Curiosity got the best of me, and I figured out that this machine has exactly 9.56805815563 bytes (76.5444652451 bits) of "RAM".
Explanation:
First, what could be considered RAM in this machine?
In a modern computer, RAM would simply be the memory the CPU uses for storing calculations (disregarding the caches and CPU registers). The analog for this machine would be the accumulator and counting register within the carriage, as those are the memory used for storing calculations.
The accumulator contains 13 base 10 digits. That means that each of those 13 wheels can take on a value between 0 and 9 for 10 total possible values.
The counting register is a little more tricky. It can take on values between 0 and 9 for addition, but it can also take on red values between 0 and 9 for subtraction. Does this mean it can take on 10 + 10 = 20 values? No, not quite. Addition and subtraction both share common 0 and 9 values, subtracting 2 from the previous total. That means that the counting register contains 8 base 18 digits.
We now know that the carriage can represent a total of (10 ^ 13) * (18 ^ 8) = 1.1019960576 * 10 ^ 23 unique values. The minimum number of base 2 digits (or bits) require to hold this number is 77. The problem is that 2 ^ 77 can represent more values than (10 ^ 13) * (18 ^ 8) can, (2 ^ 77) - (10 ^ 13) * (18 ^ 8) = 4.09161216918 * 10 ^ 22 values to be exact. So we can't say the answer is 77 bits.
To get the exact number of bits required, we need to solve the following equation for x: 2 ^ x = (10 ^ 13) * (18 ^ 8) by taking the log base 2 of each side. This gives us x = 13 * log base 2 of 10 + 8 * log base 2 of 18. This doesn’t, however, give us a great intuition for what’s going on.
Instead, let’s figure out exactly how many bits of information each wheel in both the accumulator and counting register represents. Let's look at the accumulator wheels first.
We know that each wheel can represent 10 total values. 3 bits, or 2 ^ 3, can store 8 values, while 4 bits, or 2 ^ 4, can store 16 values. So the number of bits is between 3 and 4. We're looking for the number of bits it takes to represent exactly 10 values. We can find this by solving for x in the following equation: 2 ^ x = 10. This gives us log base 2 of 10, which is roughly equal to 3.322, the number of bits required to represent 10 values.
Repeating the same process for the counting register wheels, we get that each wheel represents log base 2 of 18 bits, roughly 4.170.
The accumulator contains 13 wheels, and the counting register contains 8 wheels. The resulting expression to find the exact number of bits of "RAM" this machine has is 13 * (log base 2 of 10) + 8 * (log base 2 of 18), the same equation from earlier, except we now know what each term means. This finally gives us an exact value of 76.5444652451 bits, or 9.56805815563 bytes.
And no, I don’t have a life. :c
you can't have 76.5444652451 bits, bits can only be represented by integers.
You're exactly right. I was looking at it from just a theoretical perspective. The trouble is that the base 10 and 18 digits on this machine don't perfectly translate to an integer base 2 value. In terms of "real" bits, it would have to be rounded up to 77, but keep in mind that 77 bits can store ever so slightly more information than this calculator's memory can hold.
I'd say you do have a pretty cool life. Here you are, taking time to share knowledge with people on social media, on your own initiative. Basic logic; one cannot learn if others are not willing to teach.
I learnt to use one of those in 1971, justbefore the launch of electronic calculators.
Oh my God high school would have been like hell with this kind of calculators
I think these kind of calculators were too expensive for high school students. Even a high quality slide ruler was about as expensive as smart phones are today.
i remember that old machines in stores when i was a kid, and the complex sound they produced (listen to 'money' pink floyd, some of the sounds are there) the machine in this video is so alike that in a way
The inventor is Genius!!!
Actually I have an extremely similar looking Soviet version that is called ''Felix'' and it works very similarly to this too. It is less complex and doesn't have the cool features that this one has, like the convenient levers to push the lower panel around. Instead it has a janky lever like thingy that moves it left or right (One number order each push) depending on in which direction (where) you push it which tends to get stuck a lot... Also it has little propellers with roughly similar shape as the Russian ф character which do all the resetting. This one's definitely more sophisticated, but I really love mine too, I have it alongside two other ones which I still- call Felix, but don't actually have their name displayed (Apparently they were produced after 1972 or something after which the original Felix became redundant, and fittingly they are much more sophisticated, with actual number keyboard and front-back buttons that shift the order around. They also have a much boxier look, sleeker for the lack of a better word). They're much more intuitive and fun to play around and worth with, but I still prefer the almost alien spaceship look of the old Felix. Speaking of which, my Felix very cool teal color, even though I've seen white, grey and black ones too.
Wicked cool mate. Thanks for sharing this one
Hate to admit but we had mechanical calculators in 1974 where I worked. They were in use, not just sitting there!!!
If Archimedes had this contraption back in the day, we would've found a parallel universe by now... 😂
Omg there's one at my job. I thought it was for job punch cards. Thank you!
Beautiful little machine!
Try division by zero ☺
Julin Alex do you wish to kill us all?
I know that's a joke, but in reality, i don't think it would do anything. Division is done by subtraction here, so subtracting 0 from something does nothing.
SOLID! They don’t build it as they used to no more!
Bring this to a math class as a prank...
hello this video is really old but I hope you see this comment, I just want to say this is really cool
if I undersatnd, when you divide one billion by five, it gives you bulky forearms ?
I wonder what would happen if you multiply two large numbers on this, like a billion times a million?
Not too interesting actually, it would just flip the one in the 1 quadrilionth place, but since it doesn't display numbers that big it would overflow with a garbage output of mostly 9s.
That is a cool device!
In Back To The Future 3 (SPOILERS) the DeLorean is destroyed, and Doc Brown comes back with a time machine built into an old steam train.
THIS is the sort of date input control that I imagine it had.
I remember my school in the 1960s bought ten or so similar machines. I think they were made by a company called Odhner.
Holy crap! Up to a trillion!? Colour me impressed.
Omg that is hurting my head trying to keep up 😆 I’d rather study calculus and organic chemistry then learn SQL.
Aside from that I love the sound of it and would love to hear a classroom at work with this
If only we had this to learn math in school ...
This is actually so cool
Now divide by 0
That’s illegal.
My friend bought one from an antique shop
I love to divide by zero just to hear it ding
divide by zero
When I was in typing class many many years ago, there was an electric motor version of this calculator. Someone put it on 0x0 and started it. It kept running, of course, and he let it go until it started smoking. BTW, we had 4 IBM electric typewriters with the ball head. All the rest were manual.
Credit to the inventor .this is too mind boggling
Wow! It's really cool
I can hear Casio laughing at the background!! 😂
if you throw it off the International Space Station, will it make a crater or burn up in the atmosphere faster?
It's amazing how such a machine evolved into what we know now as a computer. And amazingly, the way CPU works is basically the same - you have your input/output stores (registers), a component that does arithmetic (ALU) and a component that makes the machine run - the clock in a CPU, the rotating lever in this device.
Also, the action at 0:50 with that lever, the sound, it was really rewarding. Pretty cool machine.
Pretty genius... mechanical device.
great invention 👍
Wow, the last time I heard about having a remainder when doing division was when I was in elementary school. Kinda crazy how remainders are just not a thing in the real world when you think about it and I've been working in a lot of tech related fields for decades.
Modular arithmetic
Judging by all the levers, i think its design is pretty simple!
That's pretty cool!
No ıts not
Does it need special lubricants ?
Like Dexron IV or Toyota WS ?
This looks satisfying as hell 💀
If you divide be zero, does it explode?
Our fingers!
A pair of hands; right and left.
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Porte = [C17: shortened from F Sublime
Que pesar que sea en inglés . Ese es una calculadora del año 68 mas o menos , hacia las cuentas un tío político , no era tan alta pero lo veía trabajando en sus cuentas . Que recuerdo tan hermoso .
que problema hay en que sea en inglés? busca en castellano o aprende inglés
Very cool machine
question. so for division operation can be done in 1000s and get answer fast. but lets say we are multiplying, only possible to rotate clockwise and counter only up by 1. example, 342x130, you have to turn 130 times to get answer. right?
No. The turn counter shifts as well so you can use the same method. 100x1 first, then 10x3
I want to use this during my exam.
I find it reassuring that the mechanical calculator also finds subtraction with larger numbers a little bit more difficult.
I had zero idea these even existed.
Great stuff.
It's a mechanical computer
this is amazing......