My father had one of these. I loved playing with it. It was plastic, and I don't know how old it was. The first one was made in Trenton, NY, to the north of Utica, NY The advertisement says, "To save the brain from strain."
I remember my dad had a more modern version of this. It was thinner, flat, and its case was made of plastic. I remember as a kid playing with all these counting machines, engineering scale rulers, micrometers, slide rules, mechanical calculators, etc. I'm positive I probably ruined more than one of these items, but I do remember them being stand-ins for all sorts of space craft, air craft carrier landing decks, and all sorts of other things. They were all left overs from his graduate school engineering days, and I'm sure by that time in his life with me and my older brother he got to the point where he stopped caring about caring of maintaining his old tools from our hands; he was never going to have use for them again. Which I know as well, I don't know how much random old electrical and computer bits that I once cherished were destroyed by becoming playthings by my kids (meh...its the way it is).
Yeah, I have the cheap plastic version as well in storage somewhere. IIRC it's kind of a mint green with white dials? I may be misremembering, it's been years since I've had it out to play with.
My parents had one of these back in the 70s. It was metal with plastic dials and had to be several decades, maybe half-a-century old at that point. They also had a plug-in electric calculator that was several times larger than a modern laptop!
Yeah...unfortunately those are exceedingly rare (particularly in working order) and thus incredibly expensive. Hopefully somebody offers to lend him one!
@dancoroian1 I'm fortunate enough to own one. It's mostly OK. One switch is jammed, and it needs lubrication. It's unbelievably expensive to have it serviced, and there's a waiting list 18 months long last I checked.
Wanna say Mat showed one off on Techmoan but [1] I’m not totally certain and it could have been another channel and [2] there’s always room for more and I’d for sure be up for Gilles’s take on it
I'm also fascinated by mechanical calculators (and vintage electronic ones). I found one exactly like this at an estate auction a couple of years ago, in very good cosmetic condition. It works well, and also had the original stylus and stand. Quite a nice bit of mid-century technology.
I had (and still have!) a smaller plastic version of this, ca. 1950. It is labeled "Kes-Add", and has 4 digits. I used it to add up schoolkids' test scores for my Mom.
I have two of these! One just like this one, and one slightly later model in grey that has simplified subtraction functions. I can't wait to watch this video!!
My grandma had an old mechanical calculator in her basement that I used to play with as a kid. I really wish I'd kept it after she passed away in 2007; it was just way cool in general but it would probably be worth some money now...
We had a plastic one. I seem to remember it was a gift from a grocery store or some sort of mail off promo ("Send 4 proof of purchase seals and a check or money order for 75 cents" one of those deals). They envisioned you taking it with you grocery shopping.
My Mom had one of these. It was dumbed-down and very specialized. It was intended to keep a running total of your grocery bill as you were shopping, so it was designed to be used one-handed, so you could place items into your cart with one hand while you tallied them with the other. It rested in the palm of your hand and you used three fingers to operate three buttons: Dollars, dimes and pennies. You entered 57¢ by pressing the middle button five times and the right button seven times. Not terribly impressive, but convenient if that’s what you needed.
The wheels of fortune! Would love to see a presentation on slide rules and how to use. I vaguely remember how to use my fathers as a teen before I got my first calculator (Novus) in 1972. Dad was a whiz with it as a mechanical engineer.
I have the one that was used all the time by my Grandfather. It's all Green metal with white numbers in the black stand. That along wirh a few tools and his copy of Playboy with Marilyn Monroe center fold is among my best treasures.
My dad , who was an accountant, had the gray version and I believe it could subtract by turning the dials in reverse order. My brother who is was a CPA has it now.
I've got apparently the last model, gray, square holes for the readout, clearing lever. The felt back has fallen mostly off and the only thing written there is "Pat. Applied For". The machine I have belonged to a family member, it's almost as old as me.
I have a few pocket versions of these. The fact that they are riveted or crimped together makes me wish I had an Xray machine to get a non-destructive glimpse into how they work.
@@Pygar2 I used to pay my local veterinarian to xray my old film cameras and such, but that gets expensive fast. I had an xray machine but it was a panoramic one, and it used film. :(
I thought it counted how many lightning strikes happened and was super impressed now that I am about 5 minutes in I am starting to become thoroughly disappointed
Oh, on the newer machines that look like a typewriter and can multiply and divide... I was in a business that had one and I entered "355 / 113" and it took off calculating. It went on so long an employee thought I'd broken it and pulled the plug. No pi for him!
Love the sizzle page in the beginning. Reminds me of every time I have to explain to a young'n how to operate DIP switches on an old intelligent light. And since you need a stylus to input, does this count as, like, the first PDA? It can't read your email but it DOES have a calculator function. Cheers and thank yous for what you produce and publish.
I enjoyed the video very much. And nice job recapping the complicated history - I had some fun researching it and putting it all together (See link to my page in the description)
Thank you Gilles! Anyone who likes Our Own Devices might also like Chris Staecker’s channel. He focuses on mechanical adding machines and nomograms, and he’s quite humorous. When I first found his channel I thought he was the anti-Gilles. Here’s one he did on this device: ruclips.net/video/ou9u5ZZLWPU/видео.htmlsi=yB0ZgaYAPYId74VA
11:53 surely inaccuracy would be a more significant problem than jamming - I'd rather my adding machine obviously fail than give incorrect answers while still appearing to work.
Please disable the ai translations, youtube doesnt allow me to just disable them and always switches them on for your videos... those ai translations ruin a perfectly crafted video completly...
Yep other channels have had this issue too. RUclips turned it on by default without telling creators. And only they can turn it off, watchers can't easily
Since our host is not in the comments too much in general, and hasn't been active here, I emailed him to let him know, and he responded that he turned autodubbing off now. So future videos won't have this issue. (Unfortunately YT has not provided a way to remove it from existing videos, short of deleting and reuploading which is terrible for performance)
Mid 1940's sheet metal production was well established, the cost material value is low and the loose tolerances allow easy assembly of duplicate parts. $12.95 or $130 today for something that probably cost $2 to make !
This is half joke and half really dorky comment: as it’s a tool, I think “Calcumeter” should be pronounced kal-‘kyu-mi-ter (emphasis on the second syllable), otherwise it’s a metric unit of length Mostly because I’m really dweebily rankled by the pronunciation of “kilometer” but I know it’s a lost cause
My father had one of these. I loved playing with it. It was plastic, and I don't know how old it was.
The first one was made in Trenton, NY, to the north of Utica, NY The advertisement says, "To save the brain from strain."
I replayed and paused the intro hoping it was what I thought it was, I was not disappointed.
LMAO I remember doing that on my TI-30 in 1980 That was a genius intro!!
It works better in hexadecimal, where "B" is a digit.
Yes, the good ol' BOOBSOO...
@@KarlBunker It works even better in ascii, where you have all the letters!
I remember my dad had a more modern version of this. It was thinner, flat, and its case was made of plastic. I remember as a kid playing with all these counting machines, engineering scale rulers, micrometers, slide rules, mechanical calculators, etc. I'm positive I probably ruined more than one of these items, but I do remember them being stand-ins for all sorts of space craft, air craft carrier landing decks, and all sorts of other things. They were all left overs from his graduate school engineering days, and I'm sure by that time in his life with me and my older brother he got to the point where he stopped caring about caring of maintaining his old tools from our hands; he was never going to have use for them again. Which I know as well, I don't know how much random old electrical and computer bits that I once cherished were destroyed by becoming playthings by my kids (meh...its the way it is).
Yeah, I have the cheap plastic version as well in storage somewhere. IIRC it's kind of a mint green with white dials? I may be misremembering, it's been years since I've had it out to play with.
I remember these on grocery cart bar handles. 1960's- early 70's
My parents had one of these back in the 70s. It was metal with plastic dials and had to be several decades, maybe half-a-century old at that point. They also had a plug-in electric calculator that was several times larger than a modern laptop!
I'd very much like to see a video about CURTA mechanical calculators. I find them absolutely amazing.
Yeah...unfortunately those are exceedingly rare (particularly in working order) and thus incredibly expensive. Hopefully somebody offers to lend him one!
@dancoroian1 I'm fortunate enough to own one. It's mostly OK. One switch is jammed, and it needs lubrication. It's unbelievably expensive to have it serviced, and there's a waiting list 18 months long last I checked.
Wanna say Mat showed one off on Techmoan but [1] I’m not totally certain and it could have been another channel and [2] there’s always room for more and I’d for sure be up for Gilles’s take on it
Brilliant video and amazing device! I need one to bring to my local coffee shop with my typewriter and box camera! Thanks for sharing! Great channel!
I'm also fascinated by mechanical calculators (and vintage electronic ones). I found one exactly like this at an estate auction a couple of years ago, in very good cosmetic condition. It works well, and also had the original stylus and stand. Quite a nice bit of mid-century technology.
I had (and still have!) a smaller plastic version of this, ca. 1950. It is labeled "Kes-Add", and has 4 digits. I used it to add up schoolkids' test scores for my Mom.
I have two of these! One just like this one, and one slightly later model in grey that has simplified subtraction functions. I can't wait to watch this video!!
There's a great video of a dude explaining and building a mechanical calculator out of wood. Worth a watch!
I was thinking the same.
Back in the mid 70s the office my father worked in had an electromechanical adding machine. It was noisy and slow but fascinating to use.
My grandma had an old mechanical calculator in her basement that I used to play with as a kid. I really wish I'd kept it after she passed away in 2007; it was just way cool in general but it would probably be worth some money now...
I love these old devices.
We had a plastic one.
I seem to remember it was a gift from a grocery store or some sort of mail off promo ("Send 4 proof of purchase seals and a check or money order for 75 cents" one of those deals).
They envisioned you taking it with you grocery shopping.
I remember grocery store carts having these on the handle bar
My Mom had one of these. It was dumbed-down and very specialized. It was intended to keep a running total of your grocery bill as you were shopping, so it was designed to be used one-handed, so you could place items into your cart with one hand while you tallied them with the other.
It rested in the palm of your hand and you used three fingers to operate three buttons: Dollars, dimes and pennies. You entered 57¢ by pressing the middle button five times and the right button seven times.
Not terribly impressive, but convenient if that’s what you needed.
The wheels of fortune!
Would love to see a presentation on slide rules and how to use. I vaguely remember how to use my fathers as a teen before I got my first calculator (Novus) in 1972. Dad was a whiz with it as a mechanical engineer.
Supporting a Canadian contributor. Do it!
My grandfather had one and used on board ship on trading voyages.
Thanks for adding that song (you can's divide it) By the Light of the Silvery Moon from 1909 by Gus Edwards and Edward Madden.
I have the one that was used all the time by my Grandfather.
It's all Green metal with white numbers in the black stand.
That along wirh a few tools and his copy of Playboy with Marilyn Monroe center fold is among my best treasures.
Thank you, you summed it up well.
My dad , who was an accountant, had the gray version and I believe it could subtract by turning the dials in reverse order. My brother who is was a CPA has it now.
I've got apparently the last model, gray, square holes for the readout, clearing lever. The felt back has fallen mostly off and the only thing written there is "Pat. Applied For".
The machine I have belonged to a family member, it's almost as old as me.
I have a few pocket versions of these. The fact that they are riveted or crimped together makes me wish I had an Xray machine to get a non-destructive glimpse into how they work.
Every Halloween, places with x-rays offer to x-ray candy. You'd think they might be willing to x-ray a gadget for a change...
@@Pygar2 I used to pay my local veterinarian to xray my old film cameras and such, but that gets expensive fast.
I had an xray machine but it was a panoramic one, and it used film. :(
Very interesting
I thought it counted how many lightning strikes happened and was super impressed now that I am about 5 minutes in I am starting to become thoroughly disappointed
Oh, on the newer machines that look like a typewriter and can multiply and divide... I was in a business that had one and I entered "355 / 113" and it took off calculating. It went on so long an employee thought I'd broken it and pulled the plug.
No pi for him!
Love the sizzle page in the beginning. Reminds me of every time I have to explain to a young'n how to operate DIP switches on an old intelligent light. And since you need a stylus to input, does this count as, like, the first PDA? It can't read your email but it DOES have a calculator function. Cheers and thank yous for what you produce and publish.
Have a happy new year Our Own Devices
Looks like the mechanical adding machine was one wager that Pascal actually won.
'By the Light of the Silvery Moon' was published in 1909 😊
I enjoyed the video very much. And nice job recapping the complicated history - I had some fun researching it and putting it all together (See link to my page in the description)
Thank you Gilles!
Anyone who likes Our Own Devices might also like Chris Staecker’s channel. He focuses on mechanical adding machines and nomograms, and he’s quite humorous. When I first found his channel I thought he was the anti-Gilles.
Here’s one he did on this device: ruclips.net/video/ou9u5ZZLWPU/видео.htmlsi=yB0ZgaYAPYId74VA
Do you have a comptometer? I think that would be a device (and company!) to your liking.
I never knew Grand Rapids had a calculator “industry” at some point
I thought it was gonna be a lightning strike counter. That would’ve been cool
Personally I'd take slightly more difficult operation over having to replace things every half decade any day
11:53 surely inaccuracy would be a more significant problem than jamming - I'd rather my adding machine obviously fail than give incorrect answers while still appearing to work.
You could rename this channel *_"Our Old Devices."_* 😊
When did the clicker counter come out?.
I have one of these.
I was just gifted one of these this past Christmas
Does it all add up?🤔
It seems to me taht it'd be faster and easier just to do it on paper considering you have to turn wheels which takes more time than pressing a key
I thought you were going to show us a device which automatically counts the number of lighting events detected.
someone is obviouslly not a fan, stares at the ONE down vote
Please disable the ai translations, youtube doesnt allow me to just disable them and always switches them on for your videos... those ai translations ruin a perfectly crafted video completly...
Yep other channels have had this issue too. RUclips turned it on by default without telling creators. And only they can turn it off, watchers can't easily
Wtf RUclips, you won't let me change it out of your Italian ai dumbed over. Ruin the video from a channel is like.
Found an extension that might help called "RUclips - No More Translation" for Firefox and Chrome. I haven't tested it yet though.
Maybe you set your default language as one of the translated voice? I never have it automatically turned on.
Since our host is not in the comments too much in general, and hasn't been active here, I emailed him to let him know, and he responded that he turned autodubbing off now. So future videos won't have this issue. (Unfortunately YT has not provided a way to remove it from existing videos, short of deleting and reuploading which is terrible for performance)
Canadian Math has been banned in the USA now. 2+2=5 is now the thing
58008 :)
I couldn't read the display correctly, I guess... but the millisecond I saw your post, I got the answer!
Mid 1940's sheet metal production was well established, the cost material value is low and the loose tolerances allow easy assembly of duplicate parts. $12.95 or $130 today for something that probably cost $2 to make !
It's an abacus. I knew a kid in high school c. 1960 that used a version of it.
B O O . S 😂
This is half joke and half really dorky comment: as it’s a tool, I think “Calcumeter” should be pronounced kal-‘kyu-mi-ter (emphasis on the second syllable), otherwise it’s a metric unit of length
Mostly because I’m really dweebily rankled by the pronunciation of “kilometer” but I know it’s a lost cause
I think I would make subtraction mistakes
Blaise Pascal
Please disable auto ai Translation. They are horrible and some RUclips clients don't have an Option to disable them.
Why didn't they just use their phone?
i have nothing pertinent to add.
these squiggles are for the algo-deities to consume.
How scandalous..
This guy is *so* under dressed for a YT video!
Where's the monocle, the top hat and a gold pocket watch on a chain??
First