Unfortunatley, by telling you this wonderful antique mechanical calculator is only $5 heading into the final day of its auction, I probably ensure it won’t remain so for long.
5 Responses to
Leave a Reply
Follow
Subscribe
Comment
Comic
Advertise • Policies • Comment Policy
J/K to scroll posts • 100 latest comments
It’s now $21.50, and given that it’s missing it’s stylus, this might be a little high.
But – calculators like this are cool. And they aren’t too rare – if this looks interesting, do regular checks on eBay and you’ll probably find one in your price range.
The fun part is getting one and figuring out why they work.
Google Troncet Arithmographe, Addiator, and Magic Brain for history on these gems
Shoot, mere decades ago Johnson Smith sold these for like $2.
My grandma had one exactly like this. I was fascinated with it as a kid, and wound up with it when she died in the ’80s. Wonder if I’ve still got it around somewhere.
I remember how to add and subtract, but I don’t remember if I ever learned to multiply on it.
The notches at the top and bottom of each row are for carry and borrow operations. You can actually go pretty fast with it with some practice.
Ditto grandma having one and being fascinated buy confused by it.