the curta calculator
the Curta hit the world market in 1949 selling for US$125 through mail order and in a handful of specialty shops. It was a lot of money in those days, but the Curta was still a hit with engineers, traveling accountants, pilots, and even rally drivers. In the end, 150,000 of them were built in two models over the course of 20 years. It also gained a... See more
David Szondy • Curta calculator: The mechanical marvel born in a Nazi death camp
hahaha most of the servicing requests came from people taking their Curtas apart to see how they worked
1/?
the (abridged) story of Curt Herzstark, the brilliant Viennese engineer who invented an incredibly complex handheld mechanical calculator in the Buchenwald concentration camp
What's worse was that inside the device each digit of a number was set on a separate register with its own mechanism that had to be repeated up to eight to 10 times. Then to compound the problem, subtraction meant duplicating all these in reverse, plus a special mechanism to handle carrying the number when necessary. No wonder a handheld calculator... See more
David Szondy • Curta calculator: The mechanical marvel born in a Nazi death camp
love how physical everything is - there was a mechanism built specifically to carry a number over
HERZSTARK: Yes, we had our basic four function machines. This machine, our machine, could automatically multiply and divide. But we did not produce large numbers of machines because we did not have the capital. We also had electric machines of which we produced about 10-12 in a month. Then we had the Astra to sell and then, of course, the Multisumm... See more
Curt Herzstark • An Interview with Curt Herzstark
so interesting to think of the calculator as replacing human labor —> nice way to connect this all to our present moment.
"And again and again, wherever one went, competitors came with wonderful, big machines, which were ever more expensive and electric, but something was missing in the world market," said Herzstark in an extensive interview (PDF) conducted by the Charles Babbage Institute in 1987. "'I would like to have a machine that fits into my pocket and can calc... See more
David Szondy • Curta calculator: The mechanical marvel born in a Nazi death camp
In the late 1940s, Hertzstark had filed new patents and eventually found a backer in the Prince of Liechtenstein. The country, where Hertzstark resettled until his death in 1988, was looking to expand its economy and the Prince agreed to help set up a company to build and market the Curta, the Contina AG Mauren, with Hertzstark holding 30 percent o... See more
David Szondy • Curta calculator: The mechanical marvel born in a Nazi death camp
Curta adds, subtracts, multiplies, divides, square and cube roots, continuous multiplication, negative multiplication, standard deviations and all statistical calculations, squares and higher powers, co-ordinates and associated land survey formulae, and every other computation arising in science and commerce. Available on a trial basis. Price $125.00. Write for literature.
When I was growing up my parents used a Curta calculator to balance their ‘budget book’. Don’t ask me how it works.