Curta mechanical calculator | Hacker News Reader

Curta mechanical calculator

en.wikipedia.org

38 pointsJetSpiegel14 comments

That brings back fond memories.

My Mom & Dad met doing TSD rallies in the 60s. They both worked for the same company. She had a Morgan, he had Curta. They have both passed away, but I still have a number of their rally trophies, as well as my Dad's Curta on a shelf in my home office. I would love to be able to say that I have my Mom's Morgan, but they sold it when I was born to get a more practical car.

I can't find anything on the net about Morgan calculators. Were they rare?

A Morgan is a kind of vehicle, likely that one was a small roadster.

They are a fairly rare, hand-made British sports car. My mom told me they had a quite long waiting list (years?) to get one. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgan_%2B4

Here's an interesting video of one in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0cGjC62XRQ

I wish someone would bring these back into production. All the patents should be long expired. They are going for close to $1000 on eBay, which is too much for me.

I've got one. I have a hard time believing that they can be made for $1000 today. The fit, finish, and complexity is astonishing.

I have no idea whether or not anything will ever happen with it, but I got a Curta teardown poster (shows all of the parts to scale) recently, with the aim of modeling each component. I'd really like to get everything machined, so I can have my very own.

I don't know if it'll ever get to that point, but it's one of my goals.

Edit: I should note, though, that it's unlikely to cost less than $1k per unit. This is more a labor of love and to get more of them out there, than an attempt to make them economical.

Incredible design, things nowadays don't have this level of polish. I guess it's different when you're literally working for your life!

I have 2 of these and still pull them out to play with all the time. There us just something so tactile about the feel in your hand, especially while turning over a calculation. I collect "old mechanical technology" but these are one of the prides of my collection. There are only only a couple people in North America that can still service one.

For a video explaining how it works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loI1Kwed8Pk

Interestingly, it is based on an invention of Leibnitz (1600's).

Thanks very much, that was quite elucidative. I can see why people had difficulty putting it back together.

Still no mention of Pattern Recognition, poor William Gibson.

Here is a Curta simulator:

http://www.curta.de/kr34/curta_simulator_en.htm

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