the curta calculator

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... See more

Real calculators were so large and heavy because they were enormously complex devices that had to be built out of solid metal parts if they were to work accurately without jamming. Also, it was common practice to have a complete set of number keys for each column of digits, so the user was faced with a solid slab of keys, including special ones for... See more

1/? the (abridged) story of Curt Herzstark, the brilliant Viennese engineer who invented an incredibly complex handheld mechanical calculator in the Buchenwald concentration camp

But the clever bit was when Hertzstark got rid of all the number registers and replaced them with a single unit called a step drum. This, as the name implies, is a drum made of metal cut in steps to correspond to different numbers. He then simplified things even further by adding a second drum on top of the first in reverse, so a simple shift in... See more

When I was growing up my parents used a Curta calculator to balance their ‘budget book’. Don’t ask me how it works.

1/? the (abridged) story of Curt Herzstark, the brilliant Viennese engineer who invented an incredibly complex handheld mechanical calculator in the Buchenwald concentration camp