[PLUG-TALK] Curta mechanical calculator

[John Jason Jordan]

On Fri, 10 Dec 2021 19:33:24 -0800
Denis Heidtmann <denis.heidtmann at gmail.com> dijo:

>I remember my uncle, a civil engineer, using paper and pencil and log
>trig tables, to close polygons for land surveying. He never used a
>calculator-just addition and subtraction with a pencil.  The paper was
>yellow legal size, which he easily filled.  I went from slide rule to
>electronic calculator in the mid '60s.  Never saw this device you
>mention. I do remember motorized calculators making disturbing
>clunking noises for division in a college lab in the early '60s.

My father proudly showed me a Friden mechanical calculator that he had
purchased for his office. He claimed that it could calculate the
national debt. This was ca 1960, when normal adding machines could only
total to 999999.99 and had an arm that you pulled down to add the
number that you had just punched in.

Dad demonstrated the Friden by entering a random five digit number and
multiplying it by another random five digit number. The machine sat
making clunka-clunka noises for about fifteen minutes before it finally
displayed the answer.