When you try to get the square root of seven, it becomes a whitehole generator, that infinitely spits out energy from another universe. Grenade almost doesn't even fit the description; more like doomsday weapon.
FYI: the inventor was still designing the Curta when he was thrown into a Nazi prison camp. But the Nazis wanted this device badly for use in artillery aiming calculations in the field. So they kept him alive to work on it. He kept screwing up each model on purpose so it didn't work, until the end of the war, when he was liberated. So basically, the Curta saved his life.
Yea I love that story. The prison commandant promised him that he would make him an honorary Aryan and give one to Hitler once they won the war. Glad he never got one. He wouldn't have appreciated it's brilliance anyway.
@@marcelo90z Well the inventors name was "Curt", but what's ironic as well is, his last name was "Herzstark", wich translates to "strong heart" or "strong hearted"
Stunning! I went to school in England between 1967 and 1974 and we learnt how to use mechanical calculators affectionately known as "coffee grinders". In about 1972 we went to a first (Japanese) digital computer with punch card input and cathode ray tube output. Looping was achieved mechanically by a motor driving the punched card up and down. Great channel Mat, excellent subjects, camera technique, editing and voice-overs. All the best, Rob
RobWhittlestone Thanks for the kind words Rob - If we are going down memory lane.....I remember when I started work in 1987 the first company I went to (a large well known financial organisation) still had many of their their client records on punched cards. Each record took up multiple cards and were perhaps a couple of inches deep. These were housed in little drawers in hundreds of filing cabinets that took up an entire warehouse sized floor. I imagine the whole lot would fit on one MicroSD card now.
Thanks for the trip down memory lane. The first time I heard of or saw the Curta was when I was in university in the early '70s. We were still using slide rules, but electronic calculators were just becoming affordable for engineering students. One of our professors wanted to give us some context to the developing technologies, and brought in his own Curta to show us.
theres a cheesy 3D printed version floating about, but its bulky due to the high precision tolerances needed to get them working in their original sizes. if you want something other than slightly dodgy plastic, you're pretty much gonna need to get an antique. the systems set up to produce the precision ground components for these things just aren't around anymore, and there's no money in bringing it back, so likely, they never will be. kinda like Bakelite :c (outside of some specific industrial applications apparently)
Nick Petersen every couple of months I check if there's any repro because damn I want one extremely bad. So instead I wrote Curta on my fishing reel & pretend it's one.
Bakelite is still in use, Phenolic Formaldehyde resin is used for some boat propellers and some thermal insulation. Lots of stuff now that I think about it.
Sure. The patent is long-expired. You might not be able to sell them under the brand name Curta, not unless you could license the trademark (or if it was abandoned at some point), but reproductions would be perfectly legal...except they'd probably cost about $500-$1000 to even produce.
I had the pleasure of experimenting with it, reading the manual and figuring out how it worked. It's amazing how the multiplication and division works. The engineering behind it is absolutely astonishing!
That's probably because it's a high end product in the first place. Being in metal (looks like steel) require surface treatment if you want your product to pass the test of time
@Alejandro Galarza washer machines and the like still tend to be pretty simple. The input methods have gotten more complex but the actual functions can all be re wired to be mechanical switches if you know what you're doing.
This is so cool! Adam Savage from Tested/Mythbusters posted a video not long ago where he sent two Curtas he owns to a place and they did a CT mapping of it and posted the links to the files generated by the scans for anyone curious about how one looks inside as well.
Lately there's been a lot of people asking to see the inside of this. As mentioned in the video this might be the best documented thing ever manufactured...put the word Curta into google and you'll find absolutely everything you could ever possibly want to know about the Curta...there's loads on RUclips too, here's an example. ruclips.net/video/loI1Kwed8Pk/видео.html If you want a poster of the internals - it's here www.vcalc.net/cu.htm
always something new to me on this channel, good work man, keep showing off neat stuff nobody is aware of! Well, at least more stuff with a cult following, the nixie stuff was cool too.
I too am fascinated by complex mechanical things. I have a Rowe AMI jukebox from 1971. It is all electro-mechanical and actually quite complex. It has a row of letters and numbers, so you push D-6 and the 45 record in slot D-6 will play. The mechanical parts are not too bad to work on, but the electrical components are getting hard to find. Vacuum tubes have become scarce and I find myself having to rewire and replace whole sections to use parts that are accessible. It is a labor of love though...
I have several mechanical calculators myself Mat. It started with a Curta 45 years ago when I paid the princely sum of £25 I then moved on to some of the bigger machines and slide rules. I tell people they will be useful when the world goes futt. The same goes for anything mechanical and I still have a peddle sewing machine and lots of hand tools that don't require electricity.
Thanks a lot Techmoan. I saw your Curta video and knew this would be a great gift for my engineer wife. I'm out several hundred dollars thanks to you. She's going to love this baby. Thanks.
Stanton Taylor That's a great gift of a truly fascinating gadget. You can always justify it as an investment, the Curta keeps appreciating in value....not that you would ever want to sell it.
This is a very cool device. A few years ago my father gave me his. He was a civil engineer and often did work in the field. He purchased his new back in the early sixties. He used it regularly and it shows signs of use. Classic to the way he is, he still had the original cardboard box and documentation that it came with. I was always fascinated by it as I grew up. Thanks for sharing and bringing back some great memories.
In the early 1970's I worked on a US Forest Service land survey crew. Our work was in the remote Sierra mountains of CA and we used a Curta everyday to do our calculations. It was a prized device and we took very good care of it as it saved us so much time as the alternative was hand calculation.
@@twistedpeanuts6958 it’s the best job on earth, I don’t know why more people don’t go into it. It has everything, historical research, searching for old evidence (healed over blazes on bearing trees, marked stones, old pipes, etc), math especially trigonometry, statistics, we fly mapping drones, get paid to hike, etc. it can be strenuous at times. One of my young coworkers was majoring in Civil Engineering but he wasn’t sure that’s what he wanted to do so he went around to all the different engineering departments but they wouldn’t talk to him until he met Dr. Crossfield in Geomatics Engineering (Fresno State University), pulled him into the office and talked him into it, way better than Civil he said. My next trip is to the Sequoia NF backcountry, have to locate a corner back there, will involve some cross country hiking. With modern GPS receivers it doesn’t involve so much conventional traversing and triangulation. Needed for surveying some of the boundaries of Mountain Home State Forest.
I first saw a Curta in 1967, when I was 11. I was amazed. I now have a mod II and as with you, it is one of my prized possessions. Off to "crank out an answer" or two ...
I love the advertisement at 1:11. No click bait, misdirection, flashy gimmicks or hiding the true price. Just a simple description of the product, why you should want it and how to buy one. Advertisements today shove themselves in your face and pander to the idiots who are the only ones that pay attention to them anymore.
INdeed, I thought that the idea was conceived in 1950 and then he bough a model based on it, NOT that it literally was made in 1950, it really looks like a modern thing.
Looks so cool for a 60 year old machine, it still looks futuristic after all these years and its still amazingly complex and just an awesome piece of equipment!
Circa 1962 I was rallying with the local SCCA club and was introduced to the Curta as a computational aid that some of the more well heeled teams used. It was common to see the wife (navigator) cranking the Curta at a timer's stop. These were the teams that drove Alfas, Porsches and Austin Healys. I wanted a Curta but my Corvair budget did not allow.
A lot of people commenting on how modern it looks without realising that the modern design language Is largely based on the 50's and early 60's. Modern design is a revival of design from this era, this is why it looks modern. In a few decades we will have translucent plastics again.
As you promised, the last one is the most amazing one! Really interesting! Not only your videos are useful, but also instructive about technology history! Thank you for that and for the time you use to make your videos! I really appreciate it! Merry Christmas to you and your family! Regards from Norway!
Techmoan I saw a documentory about automatons and the writing boy is absolutely amazing! it's unbelievable what they managed to achieve with such limited/complicated technology.
There is nothing quite like moving parts doing the work! Absolutely fascinating how so many mechanisms can be moved in to a hand held device and work so well!
Other impressive devices from 50+ years ago are the automatic record changers. The entire mechanism was mechanical. Functions: Lift the stylus and place it on the vinyl record. Sense the end of the record, lift the stylus, and drop the next record. At the end of the last record, lift the stylus, dock the tone arm, and turn the amplifier off.
Thank you for this informative clip. My father was a surveyor during the 1960’s through to the 1990’s and I remember him using one of these Cortas but I could never grasp how it worked. Thank you for explaining it so clearly.
Everyone knows things that other's are less familiar with, nothing you can do about that unless you're some kind of chap with a huge head who consumes every bit of information he can get his hands on.
That is an absolute beauty. I collect calculators, probably because I’m so bad at math, and the Curta is one I will never have the pleasure of owning. Unless one pops up in a thrift store. It’s design is right up there for me, along with the Eames Lounge Chair and the Alpha SX-70.
Check the 3D printed one! Part 1: ruclips.net/video/f_BKrc08eEw/видео.html Part 2: ruclips.net/video/tw5emU9Ka6g/видео.html Part 3 (final): ruclips.net/video/4fJvsrygeDU/видео.html
I know! That's also what I said in my comment! It's ironic because I was watching Top Gear on another tab and this the first time I saw this, and i was like, "Why is James May talking about CALCulATORS?!!"
Always a pleasure visiting this video, the first one I remember watching from your channel nearly 10 years ago now. The best part about your channel is how the format has remained almost identical however, the quality of the video As well as your presentation has done nothing but improved. thanks again for nearly 10 years of entertainment, education, and above all, a right good time.
To divide in the curta you just do recursive substraction. For example, if you have to divide 10 by 3 you do : 10 - 3 = 7 7 - 3 = 4 4 - 3 = 1 As you have repeated the substraction 3 times, that is your result 10/3 = 3 with remainder 1 (The last number you could not substract 3). But what happens if you divide 10 by 0? 10 - 0 = 10 10 - 0 = 10 10 - 0 = 10 ... and so on Thats why division by 0 is nosense, so if you try in the curta you will have to spin the wheel forever until the machine or your wrist breaks. As for √-1 it is not a natural number so you cant get a result in natural numbers that curta uses.
The device doesn't really have a "square root key"--I'm guessing the manual told you to use Newton's iteration using the Curta for the arithmetic (guess the approximate square root, divide the original number by it, find the mean of the guess and the quotient, repeat until the result converges).
The engineering that went into something like this is amazing. The capabilities of purely mechanical devices always impress me. I wonder what the most complex mechanical device is?
There are some folks trying to build a real implementation of Babbage's analytical engine. Perhaps if they complete it, it may become the most complex mechanical device.
Wow. Thank you for making this video. I have never seen one of these before and I find it absolutely amazing. What an ingenious, beautiful, well-crafted device.
WOW!!! This is one video I wish I would have never watched! Just last fall at a Church Rummage sale I came across one of these identical to this one...still in its original box...with the instruction booklet! For a mear $8.00 US! And they are going for a Grand! DAMN! LOL
The most fascinating part is how small it is. The early electronic calculators were so bulky, and this little mechanical model could probably fit in your pocket.
I like mechanics.it is a great example that mechanics is as useful in calculations as electronics. Thanks to that great designer and you for introducing it.
I have one that my father bought back in 1958 in a trip to Europe. I always used to show it to my classmates of the University when studying together in my house, and wait till someone guess what it was. Almost all failed... 😁
Well this is possibly the single coolest thing I've yet to find on this channel--and that's pretty impressive given some of the devices that have been featured.
Wonderful! Despite being an old guy (74,) I had never seen one of those or even been aware of its existence until now, so thank you for improving my knowledge as well as providing a very entertaining item.
wow that looks like a beautiful and well designed mechanical calculator. I grew up with electronic calculators but this is way more mesmerizing and interesting to watch.
I am a newer watcher and this stumbled into my recommended feed. I have liked your other videos but this is more particularly interesting to me. When I went to school I have used all sorts of analog computers rather then what everyone else has used. My favourite has been the slide rule (sadly got stolen from me recently). Other computer I have used was the Jepson flight computer which is another analog computer and pretty much a circular slide rule pretty much. I have always had a fascination with analog mechanical computers and analog electronic computers for my whole life sense I discovered the joys of using them. I would like to thank you for introducing me to another one that some day, I would love to get my hands on. This video has sparked even more joy in me of all the videos I have seen so far and I hope to see more interesting videos in the future (even if they are past recorded videos)
I was in a doctor's waiting room, looking at the magazines, and came across an article about the Curta. I wanted one instantly. 10 years later, and I still want one.
we got graphing calculators with a huge touchscreen in school lol. it can render 3d models and has a whole periodic system in it. you can even install games on it xD.
This marvellous machine is even more spectacular, when you realise that the guy who invented it, did so from inside Buchenwald, where he was an inmate. Outstanding!
How well I remember those magazine ads from the back pages. They ones I saw promoted the Curta's usefulness to rally car navigators, who must have used them for checking average speed and mpg. It was the 60s and I read mostly Popular Mechanics and Car and Driver. I even remember that 134.50 price. which was way over my head.
Although I am not a calculator enthusiast, I remembered these from when I was very young, circa 1963ish. I learned about these by being mad for all things automotive,and these were standard kit for what was then the most popular form of auto ralleys. These were called time/speed/ distance ralleys. You had to essentially find the route, and then follow it. There were checkpoints where you had to arrive at a very specific time, or you were penalized. You can imagine this was the perfect tool for that! PS: since the late 1970's, the sport has become just driving as fast as you can on lousy roads....and drivers and navigators started to get killed....not good for the sport.... Great job!
It's surprisingly modern looking for something created in the 50's. The logo looks like it could've been thought up yesterday.
For real
I agree, it does look very modern for 1950's, rather cool. I bet it looked futuristic and cutting edge at the tine
+JWGinge At first I thought it was some modern day replica , was surprised to find out that that is what they actually look like
great design is timeless
+christopantz Perfectly said.
It's a math grenade
Don't make me open a can of whoop-math on you. This thing could probably End You Rightly.
Citrus2Curtis Fellow Pattern Recognition fan, I see.
Indeed a weapon of math destruction
When you try to get the square root of seven, it becomes a whitehole generator, that infinitely spits out energy from another universe.
Grenade almost doesn't even fit the description; more like doomsday weapon.
I came for the puns. Arithmetic Grenade or Grenada de Mathematica?
For something that was made in the 50s, it looks remarkably modern
yeah it looks like some tactical coffee grinder or something
I think it looks quite period correct. All metal, muted blued steel or phosphate with white numerals, minimalist industrial design, art deco logo.
Dare you to walk into an Airport with it.
+Jamie If you walk into an airport just wearing speedos nowadays you get funny looks.
Techmoan haha I might try that actually!
+Jamie NEEEEEE DIGGAh
Cool calculator, Ahmed.
LOL
Yeah, those TSA morons would think it's a bomb or grenade...
Today, on things I didn't know I needed
Bobby, I need this
And i don't know what i needed in my life
FYI: the inventor was still designing the Curta when he was thrown into a Nazi prison camp. But the Nazis wanted this device badly for use in artillery aiming calculations in the field. So they kept him alive to work on it. He kept screwing up each model on purpose so it didn't work, until the end of the war, when he was liberated. So basically, the Curta saved his life.
Yea I love that story. The prison commandant promised him that he would make him an honorary Aryan and give one to Hitler once they won the war. Glad he never got one. He wouldn't have appreciated it's brilliance anyway.
Wow
What a rather ironic story, because "Curta" in Portuguese can mean "short" or "brief", but it increased the lifespan of the inventor
@@marcelo90z Well the inventors name was "Curt", but what's ironic as well is, his last name was "Herzstark", wich translates to "strong heart" or "strong hearted"
Thats pretty awesome
Stunning! I went to school in England between 1967 and 1974 and we learnt how to use mechanical calculators affectionately known as "coffee grinders". In about 1972 we went to a first (Japanese) digital computer with punch card input and cathode ray tube output. Looping was achieved mechanically by a motor driving the punched card up and down.
Great channel Mat, excellent subjects, camera technique, editing and voice-overs.
All the best, Rob
RobWhittlestone Thanks for the kind words Rob - If we are going down memory lane.....I remember when I started work in 1987 the first company I went to (a large well known financial organisation) still had many of their their client records on punched cards. Each record took up multiple cards and were perhaps a couple of inches deep. These were housed in little drawers in hundreds of filing cabinets that took up an entire warehouse sized floor. I imagine the whole lot would fit on one MicroSD card now.
Never knew they existed. Very clever, really clever in fact. It must be very nice to use.
fredintheshed1 It's a joy to use - an utterly brilliant device and it's got quite some weight to it - it feels solid.
fredintheshed1
now, in 2019, we need Adobe Flash Player simulator to run Curta Calculator simulator in browser..
Thanks for the trip down memory lane. The first time I heard of or saw the Curta was when I was in university in the early '70s. We were still using slide rules, but electronic calculators were just becoming affordable for engineering students. One of our professors wanted to give us some context to the developing technologies, and brought in his own Curta to show us.
The first person that figures out how to cheaply reproduce these... Gosh I want one so bad.
theres a cheesy 3D printed version floating about, but its bulky due to the high precision tolerances needed to get them working in their original sizes. if you want something other than slightly dodgy plastic, you're pretty much gonna need to get an antique. the systems set up to produce the precision ground components for these things just aren't around anymore, and there's no money in bringing it back, so likely, they never will be. kinda like Bakelite :c (outside of some specific industrial applications apparently)
Nick Petersen every couple of months I check if there's any repro because damn I want one extremely bad. So instead I wrote Curta on my fishing reel & pretend it's one.
Bakelite is still in use, Phenolic Formaldehyde resin is used for some boat propellers and some thermal insulation. Lots of stuff now that I think about it.
Wouls it be tecnically legal to produce and sell these? o.O
Sure. The patent is long-expired. You might not be able to sell them under the brand name Curta, not unless you could license the trademark (or if it was abandoned at some point), but reproductions would be perfectly legal...except they'd probably cost about $500-$1000 to even produce.
My grandpa had one of those! Dang, I wonder where that thing went. I always played with it as a child...
or if you find it you can use it as a fancy paper weight
I doubt if a curta would of liked being a marble.
I had the pleasure of experimenting with it, reading the manual and figuring out how it worked. It's amazing how the multiplication and division works. The engineering behind it is absolutely astonishing!
I like how his vintage calculator is more modern than modern day calculators with the matte black finish and how it's perfect for hipsters
hell, even the logo is pretty damn modern
I wanted to say the same. The design is incredibly up to date. Maybe haircuts from the '50 are not the only trending ones.
That's probably because it's a high end product in the first place. Being in metal (looks like steel) require surface treatment if you want your product to pass the test of time
But 50s haircuts are kind of trending tho...
This looks simpler to use then modern calculators; I will take one of these over some of these modern calculators.
it's amazing what engineers can do back in the days before modern digital computers.
they still do, you just can't see it
Those engineers turned into coders
Oh, they keep doing it boy! Check out walking and talking 🤖
@@f123-i4d Sooo they're watching me?
@Alejandro Galarza washer machines and the like still tend to be pretty simple. The input methods have gotten more complex but the actual functions can all be re wired to be mechanical switches if you know what you're doing.
This is so cool! Adam Savage from Tested/Mythbusters posted a video not long ago where he sent two Curtas he owns to a place and they did a CT mapping of it and posted the links to the files generated by the scans for anyone curious about how one looks inside as well.
Lately there's been a lot of people asking to see the inside of this. As mentioned in the video this might be the best documented thing ever manufactured...put the word Curta into google and you'll find absolutely everything you could ever possibly want to know about the Curta...there's loads on RUclips too, here's an example. ruclips.net/video/loI1Kwed8Pk/видео.html
If you want a poster of the internals - it's here www.vcalc.net/cu.htm
awesome piece of technology
always something new to me on this channel, good work man, keep showing off neat stuff nobody is aware of! Well, at least more stuff with a cult following, the nixie stuff was cool too.
Techmoan You sound quite a bit like MagzTv
My friend had one and one used it in Algebra, granted he could do it faster in his head.
Techmoan it looked like a fishing rod.
Wow! That is so amazing! This is my first time to see a mechanical calculator! Indeed, the inventor is really a genuis
I have a mechanical calculator from 1918, but that one is massive and weighs a ton, this thing looks like a keychain :D
FBI : watcha got there?
Every Curta Owner : uhh a Calculator.
I too am fascinated by complex mechanical things. I have a Rowe AMI jukebox from 1971. It is all electro-mechanical and actually quite complex. It has a row of letters and numbers, so you push D-6 and the 45 record in slot D-6 will play. The mechanical parts are not too bad to work on, but the electrical components are getting hard to find. Vacuum tubes have become scarce and I find myself having to rewire and replace whole sections to use parts that are accessible. It is a labor of love though...
I have several mechanical calculators myself Mat. It started with a Curta 45 years ago when I paid the princely sum of £25 I then moved on to some of the bigger machines and slide rules. I tell people they will be useful when the world goes futt. The same goes for anything mechanical and I still have a peddle sewing machine and lots of hand tools that don't require electricity.
Thanks a lot Techmoan. I saw your Curta video and knew this would be a great gift for my engineer wife. I'm out several hundred dollars thanks to you. She's going to love this baby. Thanks.
Stanton Taylor That's a great gift of a truly fascinating gadget. You can always justify it as an investment, the Curta keeps appreciating in value....not that you would ever want to sell it.
I have a 1959 modal and can not get it to open help.
This is a very cool device. A few years ago my father gave me his. He was a civil engineer and often did work in the field. He purchased his new back in the early sixties. He used it regularly and it shows signs of use. Classic to the way he is, he still had the original cardboard box and documentation that it came with. I was always fascinated by it as I grew up. Thanks for sharing and bringing back some great memories.
In the early 1970's I worked on a US Forest Service land survey crew. Our work was in the remote Sierra mountains of CA and we used a Curta everyday to do our calculations. It was a prized device and we took very good care of it as it saved us so much time as the alternative was hand calculation.
That sounds like a dream job, I bet you have lots of great stories
My first boss had used one, he said eventually grit and dirt got in it and it wouldn’t work as well.
@@twistedpeanuts6958 it’s the best job on earth, I don’t know why more people don’t go into it. It has everything, historical research, searching for old evidence (healed over blazes on bearing trees, marked stones, old pipes, etc), math especially trigonometry, statistics, we fly mapping drones, get paid to hike, etc. it can be strenuous at times. One of my young coworkers was majoring in Civil Engineering but he wasn’t sure that’s what he wanted to do so he went around to all the different engineering departments but they wouldn’t talk to him until he met Dr. Crossfield in Geomatics Engineering (Fresno State University), pulled him into the office and talked him into it, way better than Civil he said.
My next trip is to the Sequoia NF backcountry, have to locate a corner back there, will involve some cross country hiking. With modern GPS receivers it doesn’t involve so much conventional traversing and triangulation. Needed for surveying some of the boundaries of Mountain Home State Forest.
I first saw a Curta in 1967, when I was 11. I was amazed. I now have a mod II and as with you, it is one of my prized possessions. Off to "crank out an answer" or two ...
I love the advertisement at 1:11. No click bait, misdirection, flashy gimmicks or hiding the true price. Just a simple description of the product, why you should want it and how to buy one.
Advertisements today shove themselves in your face and pander to the idiots who are the only ones that pay attention to them anymore.
Must be nice to make a product that you can be proud of what it actually is, and not have to lie to people to sell it.
what advertisement? ı didnt have any advertisements in this video
Fatih Yıldız The old newspaper ad for the calculator
Lawrence Lentini
Completely amazed, such a complex device, simple, mechanical, ingenious
The machine lokks quite modern
INdeed, I thought that the idea was conceived in 1950 and then he bough a model based on it, NOT that it literally was made in 1950, it really looks like a modern thing.
Thought the same, looks modern all the way down to the font.
Looks so cool for a 60 year old machine, it still looks futuristic after all these years and its still amazingly complex and just an awesome piece of equipment!
First the "Tefi", now the Curta...never heard of that either!!! What a beautiful compact device. Thanks for the education and video.
divyajnana yes both devices compliment each other well. 1950s tech at its best.
Circa 1962 I was rallying with the local SCCA club and was introduced to the Curta as a computational aid that some of the more well heeled teams used. It was common to see the wife (navigator) cranking the Curta at a timer's stop. These were the teams that drove Alfas, Porsches and Austin Healys. I wanted a Curta but my Corvair budget did not allow.
A lot of people commenting on how modern it looks without realising that the modern design language Is largely based on the 50's and early 60's. Modern design is a revival of design from this era, this is why it looks modern. In a few decades we will have translucent plastics again.
It is incredibly striking how modern the design looks! An incredible device, thanks for showing it!
As you promised, the last one is the most amazing one! Really interesting! Not only your videos are useful, but also instructive about technology history! Thank you for that and for the time you use to make your videos! I really appreciate it! Merry Christmas to you and your family!
Regards from Norway!
Alberto Martinsen There's one more video tomorrow - but this is my favourite thing I'm showing.
Techmoan I saw a documentory about automatons and the writing boy is absolutely amazing! it's unbelievable what they managed to achieve with such limited/complicated technology.
There is nothing quite like moving parts doing the work! Absolutely fascinating how so many mechanisms can be moved in to a hand held device and work so well!
this is pretty awesome , the fact that it was made in 1950 is amazing how complicated mechanism people could do
Other impressive devices from 50+ years ago are the automatic record changers. The entire mechanism was mechanical. Functions: Lift the stylus and place it on the vinyl record. Sense the end of the record, lift the stylus, and drop the next record. At the end of the last record, lift the stylus, dock the tone arm, and turn the amplifier off.
Thank you for this informative clip. My father was a surveyor during the 1960’s through to the 1990’s and I remember him using one of these Cortas but I could never grasp how it worked. Thank you for explaining it so clearly.
Is there any way to convert the Curta to a fishing reel, for fishing and calculating in those moments in life you have to do both?
😂🤣
🤣🤣🤣
🤣🤣🤣🤣
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Not only do i love how this works.. the build is just astonishing...
Have fun getting that thing through aircraft security.
Sir this appears to be a bomb in your bag
I wish they kept making these Curta calculators, they're cool and beautiful pieces of mechanical engineering (no pun intended).
I had no idea this existed, that's awesome.
Reminds me somewhat of the enigma machine.
Manny Calavera I had the feeling that I was behind the curve on this one and everyone else knew all about the Curta - so I'm happy to be proved wrong.
Everyone knows things that other's are less familiar with, nothing you can do about that unless you're some kind of chap with a huge head who consumes every bit of information he can get his hands on.
That is an absolute beauty. I collect calculators, probably because I’m so bad at math, and the Curta is one I will never have the pleasure of owning. Unless one pops up in a thrift store. It’s design is right up there for me, along with the Eames Lounge Chair and the Alpha SX-70.
**bring it to the math test**
HE'S GOT A GRENADE
Check the 3D printed one!
Part 1: ruclips.net/video/f_BKrc08eEw/видео.html
Part 2: ruclips.net/video/tw5emU9Ka6g/видео.html
Part 3 (final): ruclips.net/video/4fJvsrygeDU/видео.html
You sound like a 27 year old James May.
NovaMan 350 true that
NovaMan 350 lol
NovaMan 350 i was born on the 27th of may lol
I know! That's also what I said in my comment! It's ironic because I was watching Top Gear on another tab and this the first time I saw this, and i was like, "Why is James May talking about CALCulATORS?!!"
I was thinking the same ahhahaha
Always a pleasure visiting this video, the first one I remember watching from your channel nearly 10 years ago now. The best part about your channel is how the format has remained almost identical however, the quality of the video As well as your presentation has done nothing but improved. thanks again for nearly 10 years of entertainment, education, and above all, a right good time.
This thing is just awesome. I can't even realise how hard is to develop it.
I came across the Curta looking for slide rules, They've amazed me ever since, thanks for posting
What if you divide by zero or take the square root of -1? ;)
To divide in the curta you just do recursive substraction. For example, if you have to divide 10 by 3 you do :
10 - 3 = 7
7 - 3 = 4
4 - 3 = 1
As you have repeated the substraction 3 times, that is your result 10/3 = 3 with remainder 1 (The last number you could not substract 3). But what happens if you divide 10 by 0?
10 - 0 = 10
10 - 0 = 10
10 - 0 = 10
... and so on
Thats why division by 0 is nosense, so if you try in the curta you will have to spin the wheel forever until the machine or your wrist breaks.
As for √-1 it is not a natural number so you cant get a result in natural numbers that curta uses.
Oh, so that's how the Curta works. Technically anything divided by 0 I undefined (not infinity) but at least the calculator gives nonsense :)
The device doesn't really have a "square root key"--I'm guessing the manual told you to use Newton's iteration using the Curta for the arithmetic (guess the approximate square root, divide the original number by it, find the mean of the guess and the quotient, repeat until the result converges).
Oh... Ok :)
ruclips.net/video/443B6f_4n6k/видео.html - a video of an electrically driven mechanical calculator dividing by zero
There are so many thinks on this channel I really want to own, this is straight to the top of the list.
The engineering that went into something like this is amazing. The capabilities of purely mechanical devices always impress me. I wonder what the most complex mechanical device is?
There are some folks trying to build a real implementation of Babbage's analytical engine. Perhaps if they complete it, it may become the most complex mechanical device.
As far as I'm concerned, it's child resistant screw caps. :D
Looks very modern. Especially that logo
RUclips
2014: No
2015: No
2016: No
2017: No
2018: No
2019: Show time
True
Wow. Thank you for making this video. I have never seen one of these before and I find it absolutely amazing. What an ingenious, beautiful, well-crafted device.
Are you James May in disguise???
+Tinfoilpain No he's not, he's argued about this many times.
+Tinfoilpain Totally the same voice :D
***** I'm Greek and even I can differentiate the accents.
+Tinfoilpain Ne das Max Beker
+Dominik Placr really isn't..
I'm almost Speechless! I find it amazing that such a mechanical device could be designed and Made!
WOW!!! This is one video I wish I would have never watched! Just last fall at a Church Rummage sale I came across one of these identical to this one...still in its original box...with the instruction booklet! For a mear $8.00 US! And they are going for a Grand! DAMN! LOL
Thomas Langley you missed out bro
Appreciate your effort in putting up this video to showcase this rare mechanical calculator.
James May, is that you? :D
ThePumpkinHead he does sound like james mau
What a beautifully complicated device wrapped in a neat little package.
Wow, that's way more impressive than today's digital calculators.
The most fascinating part is how small it is. The early electronic calculators were so bulky, and this little mechanical model could probably fit in your pocket.
I like mechanics.it is a great example that mechanics is as useful in calculations as electronics. Thanks to that great designer and you for introducing it.
I've always wondered what man could be able to do with mechanics had electricity never been discovered
It's amazing how someone actually came up with the idea and designed that thing
Question, how long will it take to calculate the meaning of life?
+SuperPickle15
Approximately 3.1415926 Mega Eternities, one hour, 14 minutes and 7 seconds ;) .
SuperPickle15 well, you can do 21*2 soo.. one turn of that lever?
I had never heard of the Curta. Thank you for enlightening me. It is absolutely amazing and beautiful bit of history.
I have one that my father bought back in 1958 in a trip to Europe. I always used to show it to my classmates of the University when studying together in my house, and wait till someone guess what it was. Almost all failed... 😁
Well this is possibly the single coolest thing I've yet to find on this channel--and that's pretty impressive given some of the devices that have been featured.
I bet Clint from lgr would like one he loves this kind of stuff
Wonderful! Despite being an old guy (74,) I had never seen one of those or even been aware of its existence until now, so thank you for improving my knowledge as well as providing a very entertaining item.
someone should make replicas
wow that looks like a beautiful and well designed mechanical calculator. I grew up with electronic calculators but this is way more mesmerizing and interesting to watch.
Your voice sounds like James May??? Am I right?
human ingenuity never ceases to amaze me
What if u divide by 0
matty amicaterra I was wondering the same thing. maybe it will break the calculator.
Gives you zero
calculator go boom
matty amicaterra the timer inside goes off and a black hole is created
No no, I swear it gives you zero. It only goes boom and forms a black hole when you try to find the square root of seven. :p
It looks like those things must feel really satisfying to use. Amazing craftsmanship!
I'm more aligned to digital/electrics, but I must MUST have one of these!
I am a newer watcher and this stumbled into my recommended feed. I have liked your other videos but this is more particularly interesting to me. When I went to school I have used all sorts of analog computers rather then what everyone else has used. My favourite has been the slide rule (sadly got stolen from me recently). Other computer I have used was the Jepson flight computer which is another analog computer and pretty much a circular slide rule pretty much. I have always had a fascination with analog mechanical computers and analog electronic computers for my whole life sense I discovered the joys of using them. I would like to thank you for introducing me to another one that some day, I would love to get my hands on. This video has sparked even more joy in me of all the videos I have seen so far and I hope to see more interesting videos in the future (even if they are past recorded videos)
Amazing, thank you for your videos, I really enjoy them
+Luis Pacheco thanks Luis.
+Luis Pacheco Das kann doch nicht dein ernst sein???!"!!!!
+Florian Voß eu gosto mais é de bolos. ..
Luis Pacheco So, I could get this... or a Titan X.
Beautifully crafted piece of machinery.
Friend: bro, can use your calculator
Me: you have activated my trap card
I was in a doctor's waiting room, looking at the magazines, and came across an article about the Curta. I wanted one instantly.
10 years later, and I still want one.
Those would be awesome in school
we got graphing calculators with a huge touchscreen in school lol. it can render 3d models and has a whole periodic system in it. you can even install games on it xD.
Yeah, but can you do arithmetic on it by fiddling and twisting things?
@@jort93z was it the casio classpad?
found your channel purely by chance and have to say your videos are both informative and very watchable ! ! thank you for your efforts
Looks kinda like a futuristic hand grenade.
This marvellous machine is even more spectacular, when you realise that the guy who invented it, did so from inside Buchenwald, where he was an inmate. Outstanding!
WTF James May? :D
sounds exactly like james may
Szymon Kucharski thats the first thing I thought, I actually checked to see if this was James May's channel after I heard his voice
Captain Slow :))
Same here :D
Veiko Soodla :D
I love it when you come across something that's old that you know little about. Then you find a plethora of information on the t'internet.
I didn't know James May had a RUclips career
Pyromaniac I know where you're getting at. but James May does have a RUclips career. Look up for his videos on a channel called Brit Lab.
How well I remember those magazine ads from the back pages. They ones I saw promoted the Curta's usefulness to rally car navigators, who must have used them for checking average speed and mpg. It was the 60s and I read mostly Popular Mechanics and Car and Driver. I even remember that 134.50 price. which was way over my head.
#mathgrenade
Riley Wilson #bringthemadness
#bringthemathness
lol good one
you throw this one into a room, full of enemy forces and its calculate their fate in a second. the deadliest 'nade ever.
Although I am not a calculator enthusiast, I remembered these from when I was very young, circa 1963ish.
I learned about these by being mad for all things automotive,and these were standard kit for what was then the most popular form of auto ralleys. These were called time/speed/ distance ralleys. You had to essentially find the route, and then follow it.
There were checkpoints where you had to arrive at a very specific time, or you were penalized. You can imagine this was the perfect tool for that!
PS: since the late 1970's, the sport has become just driving as fast as you can on lousy roads....and drivers and navigators started to get killed....not good for the sport....
Great job!
james may is that you?
+Gary Ah, Gary.
Featured in probably my favorite William Gibson book, Pattern Recognition. Super cool to see one in operation.
EMP proof calculator.
Now that's an absolutely fascinating little machine.