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Topic: Mechanical calculator

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	Mechanical Computers
		The German mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz was familiar with Pascal’s work and built a mechanical calculator in 1694 that could perform addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.
		Within a few decades, mechanical computing devices advanced to the stage where they could perform addition, subtraction, multiplication and division—all the operations required by armies of clerks to calculate the trigonometric functions we mentioned earlier.
		A clockwork mechanism rotates a drum whose surface is embedded with spikes or pins.
	www.alanclements.co.uk /History/MechanicalComputers.htm (800 words)

	Friden Model STW-10 Electro-Mechanical Calculator
		In 1965, Friden introduced the world to all-electronic, transistorized calculators with the Friden EC-130 which marked the beginning of the end of Friden's mechanical calculators.
		In contrast to calculator keyboards that people are used to nowadays, where each digit of a number is typed in sequentially, digits are entered 'in parallel' on the main keyboard.
		Apparently this was a result of another calculator company having a patent on a 'single key' divide function, which Friden's lawyers were concerned enough about to insist that the machine not have a single key for division.
	www.oldcalculatormuseum.com /fridenstw.html (1525 words)

	Calculator \| World of Computer Science
		While the calculator is a relatively modern invention, various simple calculating machines able to perform addition and subtraction have existed for centuries.
		The invention of the first mechanical calculating machine for the addition of numbers is commonly credited to the French mathematician Blaise Pascal (1623-1662).
		Even though they cost more than contemporary mechanical calculators, the electronic calculators were popular because they were faster, quieter, easier to operate, and needed little or no maintenance.
	www.bookrags.com /research/calculator-wcs (948 words)

	Four Function Mechanical Calculators
		Marchant advertised these models as 'the last word in calculators.' HP suggested that the HP 9100A might be the 'first word' in a new breed of calculators.
		This calculator used the rocking segment mechanism commonly found in ten key adding machines but in this calculator it was adapted to all four functions.
		This was actually a rather simple mechanism since the <- had nearly the same effect as pressing the 0 key and the -> key had the same effect as a backspace key.
	www.hpmuseum.org /ffhand.htm (1987 words)

	An Ancient Greek Computer
		At least 20 gear wheels of the mechanism have been preserved, including a very sophisticated assembly of gears that were mounted eccentrically on a turntable and probably functioned as a sort of epicyclic or differential, gear-system.
		From the inscriptions and the dials the mechanism was correctly identified as an astronomical device.
		The Antikythera mechanism must therefore be an arithmetical counterpart of the much more familiar geometrical models of the solar system which were known to Plato and Archimedes and evolved into the orrery and the planetarium.
	etl.uom.gr /mr/Antikythera/price.htm (3490 words)

	Calculator History - Invention of the Hand-held Calculator
		The patent is for personal-sized, battery-operated calculators which have their main electronic circuitry in a single integrated semiconductor circuit array, such as the popular "one-chip" calculators.
		The miniature calculator described in the new TI patent was the result of work done at TI in the mid-60s.
		The pocket calculator went on the market on September 21, 1972, as the TI-2500 and was capable of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.
	www.ideafinder.com /history/inventions/handcalculator.htm (1033 words)

	Mechanical Calculators
		The basic operating principles of mechanical calculators changed little from the end of the 19th century to their obsolescence in the 1970s, though there were many developments in the mechanisms and the materials used.
		The mechanical calculators featured here are typical machines which were ousted by the cheap electronic calculators which were gradually developed during the 1960s and early 1970s.
		Due to the high cost of the early electronic calculators, many mechanical calculators like the later ones shown here were produced into the early 1970s.
	www.vintagecalculators.com /html/mechanical_calculators.html (331 words)

	Calculator - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		A calculator is a device for performing calculations.
		In the past, mechanical clerical aids such as abaci, comptometers, Napier's bones, books of mathematical tables, slide rules, or mechanical adding machines were used for numeric work.
		The Sinclair calculators were widely successful because they were far cheaper than the competition; however, their design was flawed and their accuracy in some functions was questionable.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Calculator (2827 words)

	DIY Calculator :: First Mechanical Computers
		It performed its first sequence of calculations in the early 1990s and returned results to 31 digits of accuracy, which is far more accurate than the standard pocket calculator.
		However, each calculation requires the user to turn a crank hundreds, sometimes thousands of times, so anyone employing it for anything more than the most rudimentary calculations is destined to become one of the fittest computer operators on the face of the planet!
		At that time, mechanical calculators were based on the decimal number system (because that’s the way people thought).
	www.diycalculator.com /popup-h-mechcomp.shtml (1887 words)

	Unusual Web
		The Soviet "Elektronika" calculator shown at the left is a typical representative of this generation of calculators.
		Also, these calculators had a very inconvenient, but quite explicable for early calculators, feature: the required accuracy of the calculations was set by the number of significant digits entered on the first number.
		This calculator, as well as the non-RPN B3-32 calculator (shown at the left) was able to calculate the roots of a quadratic equation and find the roots of a system of two equations with two unknown variables.
	unusualweb.blogspot.com (6962 words)

	Pascal's calculator - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		Blaise Pascal invented the second mechanical calculator, called alternatively the Pascalina or the Arithmetique, in 1645, the first being that of Wilhelm Schickard in 1623.
		Pascal began work on his calculator in 1642, when he was only 19 years old.
		The calculator had metal wheel dials that were turned to the appropriate numbers; the answers appeared in boxes in the top of the calculator.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Pascal's_calculator (421 words)

	DIY Calculator :: First Mechanical Calculators
		In fact, determining who did invent the first mechanical calculator is somewhat problematical.
		In fact, some people believe that the first mechanical calculator may have been conceived by Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) almost one hundred and fifty years earlier than Schickard’s machine.
		However, his contributions to mechanical calculation remained hidden until the rediscovery of two of his notebooks in 1967.
	www.diycalculator.com /popup-h-mechcalc.shtml (660 words)

	Curta Type II Handheld Mechanical Calculator (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-10)
		To those who are familiar with old mechanical calculating equipment, the name brings to mind thoughts of high precision machining, extreme mechanical design, and, to those who've been lucky enough to use one, the wonderful feel of the mechanism in operation.
		Curta calculators were produced between 1947 and sometime in the very early '70's.
		Curta calculators gained a real following in road-rally competitions, where their small size, high speed, and ease of use made them almost indespensible for rally navigators to use to calculate the right speeds for drivers to maintain to hit the leg times of rally coarses as closely as possible.
	www.oldcalculatormuseum.com /curta2.html (348 words)

	Updates
		Depending on your definition of a calculator and how liberally you interpret the artifacts of history, the calculator goes back nearly 5,000 years to the sand abacus and the beginnings of human civilization.
		The history of mechanical calculators is just as debatable, with examples of astronomical calculators going back as far as 80 BC and appearing again around the world throughout the Middle Ages.
		Although these calculators were impressive for their day, they were all relatively small devices designed to perform relatively simple calculations.
	www.glencoe.com /norton/online/updates/1999/42799-8.html (1553 words)

	Calculator, Calculators, Mortgage Calculator (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-10)
		It was during this vintage period that the electronics for calculators was at the cutting edge of electronics research.
		The development of micro-electronics for calculator was an important phase in the history of technology, which included the development of the microprocessor.
		The WANG 300 was based in the LOCI, a desktop scientific calculator patented by Wang Laboratories in September 17, 1964 (Patent 3,402,285).
	www.calculatoronly.com (2035 words)

	UCS: The Ultimate Computer Source
		In 1600 came a breakthrough in calculating "devices." Although there were still no mechanical calculators yet, some new ways of thinking came into play regarding calculating.
		To be a mechanical calculator, the calculator must display the results of an operation in digit form, as opposed to merely using a device like an Abacus or sliderule to determine the answer.
		Operating on a series of switches and gears and other such simple machines, Pascal's mechanical calculator was a breakthrough, the beginning of the computer revolution (even though it took a while).
	library.thinkquest.org /25018/english/text/history/h1.html?tqskip=1 (848 words)

	Calculator for Mechanical Engineering
		A regular calculator with all of the scientific functions is plenty.
		To have a single calculator when studying engineering is a sign of braveness, it is as you would walk into the jungle with a fork instead of a machete and you survive.
		Always I have visited him, I see him doing numbers such as 0.145*sqrt(.7594)/5 with his head, or when they are too difficult he paces himself giving a good approximation of their value.
	www.physicsforums.com /showthread.php?t=85409 (1473 words)

	Calculator Timeline from ancient time to the latest Calculator : Educalc.net
		Ancient times - The abacus is the main aid to calculation.
		1874 - The Odhner calculator, invented by the Swedish engineer W.T. Odhner, is based on the pin-wheel principle.
		Educalc.net Pte Ltd - HP Calculator Master Distributor for South East Asia.
	www.educalc.net /251086.page (526 words)

	Curta Calculator (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-10)
		It does the same four arithmetical operations done by a pinwheel calculator like my Odhner; but the Odhner and its many clones weighed in at 6 kilograms or so, whereas the Curta sits comfortably in your hand, providing speed, convenience and precision in a mechanism weighing a mere 230 grams.
		The Curta uses the Stepped Drum mechanism invented by Leibniz in the seventeenth century, and later perfected to serve in many hefty desk calculators in the nineteenth and twentieth.
		The result of the calculation, 56088, shows in the result readout (fl part of the top), and the multiplier (456) shows in the counter readout (white part of the top).
	www.nzeldes.com /HOC/Curta.htm (494 words)

	Calculators
		This calculator is still surprisingly popular, despite the fact that biorhythms seemed to be a fad of the 1970's.
		The calculator itself is the usual clever Casio design, except that the date functions are not Year 2000 compliant.
		As with calculator and computer hardware, I'm interested in operating and programming manuals for these early calculators and computers, as well as books, pamphlets and other related materials.
	www.decodesystems.com /calculators.html (1788 words)

	History of Computing Science: The First Mechanical Calculator
		The basic principle of his calculator is still used today in water meters and modern-day odometers.
		Instead of having a carriage wheel turn the gear, he made each ten-teeth wheel accessible to be turned directly by a person's hand (later inventors added keys and a crank), with the result that when the wheels were turned in the proper sequences, a series of numbers was entered and a cumulative sum was obtained.
		The gear train supplied a mechanical answer equal to the answer that is obtained by using arithmetic.
	lecture.eingang.org /pascaline.html (184 words)

	Curta Calculator
		The Curta Calculator simulation is a 3D re-creation of the original portable mechanical calculator, invented by Curt Herzstark.
		There is something engaging about mechanical gadgets, with all of their clockwork whirrs and clicks, that is absent in our modern electronic devices.
		Looking back it seems a strange pursuit to spend days using my my computer (which is in many ways an overgrown calculator), to produce a simulation of a mechanical calculator.
	www.patbelford.com /projects/curta/index.html (247 words)

	The CURTA Calculator Page
		The CURTA Manual is a transcription of the CURTA Manual titled "Your CURTA Calculator" on one side and "The 4 arithmetical rules" on the other.
		He recounts his arrest and internment, and how he completed the design of the CURTA hand-held calculator, a prototype of which was produced in Weimar, Germany, by Rheinmetallwerke at the end of the war.
		The Prince of Liechtenstein bought the design and the calculator was initially manufactured by the CURTA division of Contina AG of Liechtenstein.
	www.vcalc.net /cu.htm (3723 words)

	Disassembling a Curta Calculator
		On this calculator, the taper pin is inserted in the same general direction as the arrow on the handle.
		With the circlip removed, carefully lift the carriage, but keep your hand over the top of the calculator to catch the brass bushing and spring in case they spring free suddenly.
		I received this calculator with the clearing lever broken off so I fabricated a replacement out of steel stock, but didn't bother to paint it to the original color.
	home.teleport.com /~gregsa/curta/disas (1408 words)

	John Lewis Mechanical Antique Repair and Restoration
		My love for repairing mechanical antiques started in 1970 when I acquired my first antique typewriters and phonograph.
		Since my background was in office machine repair, these old mechanical wonders seemed fairly simple to work on.
		Many of the office machines that I was trained on, like the IBM selectric typewriter and the Victor mechanical calculator, both of which had hundreds of internal parts, gave me the confidence and mechanical skills to service many types of old antique machines.
	www.johnlewismechanicalantiques.com (606 words)

	The Brunsviga Nova 13 Mechanical Calculator (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-10)
		Brunsviga and Millionaire calculators are listed in the 1924-1925 Columbia University Catalogue in the Social Science section (the specific Brunsviga models are not stated but the Nova 13 is a likely candidate).
		A calculator could also multiply and possibly divide (of course later calculators could do more than that).
		The Millionaire was a bit more efficent, requiring only one crank turn per multiplier digit; the increased efficiency was accomplished with (mechanical) lookup tables; thus it could multiply a long number by a single digit n directly, rather than by adding the number to itself n times.
	www.columbia.edu /acis/history/brunsviga.html (366 words)

	ENGINEERING CALCULATOR at Industryshack
		Gas Laws and Radiochemistry calculator - Boyle's Law Calculator (P1V1=P2V2), Charles' Law, Pressure Law, Combined Gas Law, STP and molar volume, half-life and Radioactive Decay Calculator.
		Pipe Friction Calculation - Calculate the pressure loss in pipes, includes pipe friction and image of the pipe element.
		Air Duct Calculator - Find duct cross sectional area, the circular duct diameter, rectangular duct equivalents, air density, fluid viscosity, Reynold's number, relative roughness, the Moody friction factor, the Colebrook friction factor, the pressure loss in PSI, and the duct friction loss.
	www.industryshack.com /calculator.php (544 words)

	Adding Machine History - Invention of the Adding Machine
		The man was a clerk, and all day long he had to do a tremendous number of mathematical calculations.
		One is of Wilhelm Schickard who invented a mechanical calculator in 1623.
		There are also sections on calculating machines and slide rules as well as sections for buying and selling HP calculators, an HP timeline, collecting information and a software library.
	www.ideafinder.com /history/inventions/story088.htm (525 words)

	CURTA CALCULATOR REPAIR and CLEANING SERVICE
		The Curta calculator requires regular maintenance to prevent acummulating dirt and dust from binding the mechanism.
		The oils and greases used are specifically developed for fine watches and other precise mechanical movements, and are improved formulations of the original factory lubricants.
		The tens carry mechanisms, the tens unit, and the results and counter digit tens overflow pins are all checked and adjusted.
	home.comcast.net /~timewise1/curta/curta.html (985 words)

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