RUMCars Forum
General Category => Unusual Microcar Discussion => Topic started by: marcus on April 03, 2012, 04:28:22 pm
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Fascinating site for all those interested in Rare and Unusual vehicles and machines, (some vaguely micro):
http://www.douglas-self.com/MUSEUM/museum.htm
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My favourite bit of retro-tech has to be the Curta calculator
http://www.vcalc.net/cu.htm (http://www.vcalc.net/cu.htm)
I still can't begin to comprehend how someone could figure out how to design it so that it might work, and then go on to build the thing in such a way that it's both robust and practical.
Who needs computers!
There's a video here of the calculator in action (with a slightly annoying narrator)
http://youtu.be/HYsOi6L_Pw4 (http://youtu.be/HYsOi6L_Pw4)
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My favourite bit of retro-tech has to be the Curta calculator
http://www.vcalc.net/cu.htm (http://www.vcalc.net/cu.htm)
I still can't begin to comprehend how someone could figure out how to design it so that it might work, and then go on to build the thing in such a way that it's both robust and practical.
Who needs computers!
There's a video here of the calculator in action (with a slightly annoying narrator)
http://youtu.be/HYsOi6L_Pw4 (http://youtu.be/HYsOi6L_Pw4)
Who needs computers? Hehe ;)
I make my money with computers, so do many other people ;)
I use a graphing calculator at school (we need it), and its very usefull, especially when you're bored, I made a couple of games on it!
That is a cool calculator though!
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I reckon the curta calculator will have been designed with a lot of awareness of Babbage's Difference Engine.
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I was recently commissioned to section a Curta for a company so they could show the works in action, I said you must be joking! Firstly everyone I know to have dismantled one has never got it back together right and working and secondly why ruin a fantastic instrument!
Curta's have an amazing history, developed in a Nazi concentration camp! After the war made in Liechtenstein I believe?
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I reckon the curta calculator will have been designed with a lot of awareness of Babbage's Difference Engine.
I doubt that as Babbages machine was not built until recently and I doubt Herzstark would have had access to Babbages notes, I may be wrong! For a fact he was infuenced by Leibniz and Frenchman Thomas de Colmar. His arithmometers still turn up in the trade.
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What an interesting website. Loads to do and look at from there.
Seem to recall Uncle Cliff, the adding/NCR till machine entrepreneur having a Curta. Very clever engineering in all those sorts of things.
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To me, THIS is retro Technology...
(http://location-bornes-arcade.fr/images-arcades/2011/09/Atari2600.jpg)
The good old Atari 2600! Old consoles are better than the new ones to me... Same sort of goes with computers, I love the really old crappy computers, but you cant really do miuch with them ;)