• Welcome to the new Internet Infidels Discussion Board, formerly Talk Freethought.

Calculating Devices

S

steve_bank

Diabetic retinopathy and poor eyesight. Typos ...
Joined
Nov 9, 2017
Messages
14,620
Location
seattle
Basic Beliefs
secular-skeptic
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stepped_reckoner

The stepped reckoner was based on a gear mechanism that Leibniz invented and that is now called a Leibniz wheel. It is unclear how many different variants of the calculator were made. Some sources, such as the drawing to the right, show a 12 digit version.[4] This section describes the surviving 16 digit prototype in Hanover.

The machine is about 67 cm (26 inches) long, made of polished brass and steel, mounted in an oak case.[1] It consists of two attached parallel parts; an accumulator section to the rear, which can hold 16 decimal digits, and an 8 digit input section to the front. The input section has 8 dials with knobs to set the operand number, a telephone-like dial to the right to set the multiplier digit, and a crank on the front to perform the calculation. The result appears in the 16 windows on the rear accumulator section. The input section is mounted on rails and can be moved along the accumulator section with a crank on the left end that turns a worm gear, to change the alignment of operand digits with accumulator digits. There is also a tens-carry indicator and a control to set the machine to zero. The machine can:
add or subtract an 8-digit number to / from a 16-digit number
multiply two 8-digit numbers to get a 16-digit result
divide a 16-digit number by an 8-digit divisor



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curta

The Curta is a small mechanical calculator developed by Curt Herzstark. The Curta's design is a descendant of Gottfried Leibniz's Stepped Reckoner and Charles Thomas's Arithmometer, accumulating values on cogs, which are added or complemented by a stepped drum mechanism. It has an extremely compact design: a small cylinder that fits in the palm of the hand.
Curtas were considered the best portable calculators available until they were displaced by electronic calculators in the 1970s.[1] .....The Curta was conceived by Curt Herzstark in the 1930s in Vienna, Austria. By 1938, he had filed a key patent, covering his complemented stepped drum, Deutsches Reichspatent (German National Patent) No. 747073. This single drum replaced the multiple drums, typically around 10 or so, of contemporary calculators, and it enabled not only addition, but subtraction through nines complement math, essentially subtracting by adding. The nines' complement math breakthrough eliminated the significant mechanical complexity created when "borrowing" during subtraction. This drum would prove to be the key to the small, hand-held mechanical calculator the Curta would become.

His work on the pocket calculator stopped in 1938 when the Nazis forced him and his company to concentrate on manufacturing precision instruments for the German army.[2
http://www.vcalc.net/cu.htm
https://newatlas.com/curta-death-camp-calculator/45506/
 
Anybody remember Pickette?

Tech companies had cheap free special rules for using product's and the like.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slide_rule#History

The slide rule was invented around 1620–1630, shortly after John Napier's publication of the concept of the logarithm. In 1620 Edmund Gunter of Oxford developed a calculating device with a single logarithmic scale; with additional measuring tools it could be used to multiply and divide.[20] In c. 1622, William Oughtred of Cambridge combined two handheld Gunter rules to make a device that is recognizably the modern slide rule.[21] Like his contemporary at Cambridge, Isaac Newton, Oughtred taught his ideas privately to his students. Also like Newton, he became involved in a vitriolic controversy over priority, with his one-time student Richard Delamain and the prior claims of Wingate. Oughtred's ideas were only made public in publications of his student William Forster in 1632 and 1653.

In 1677, Henry Coggeshall created a two-foot folding rule for timber measure, called the Coggeshall slide rule, expanding the slide rule's use beyond mathematical inquiry.

In 1722, Warner introduced the two- and three-decade scales, and in 1755 Everard included an inverted scale; a slide rule containing all of these scales is usually known as a "polyphase" rule.

In 1815, Peter Mark Roget invented the log log slide rule, which included a scale displaying the logarithm of the logarithm. This allowed the user to directly perform calculations involving roots and exponents. This was especially useful for fractional powers.

In 1821, Nathaniel Bowditch, described in the American Practical Navigator a "sliding rule" that contained scales trigonometric functions on the fixed part and a line of log-sines and log-tans on the slider used to solve navigation problems.

In 1845, Paul Cameron of Glasgow introduced a nautical slide rule capable of answering navigation questions, including right ascension and declination of the sun and principal stars.[22]

Modern form[edit]

Engineer using a slide rule, with mechanical calculator in background, mid 20th century
A more modern form of slide rule was created in 1859 by French artillery lieutenant Amédée Mannheim, "who was fortunate in having his rule made by a firm of national reputation and in having it adopted by the French Artillery." It was around this time that engineering became a recognized profession, resulting in widespread slide rule use in Europe–but not in the United States. There, Edwin Thacher's cylindrical rule took hold after 1881. The duplex rule was invented by William Cox in 1891, and was produced by Keuffel and Esser Co. of New York.[23][24]

Astronomical work also required precise computations, and, in 19th-century Germany, a steel slide rule about two meters long was used at one observatory. It had a microscope attached, giving it accuracy to six decimal places.[citation needed].

Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, the slide rule was the symbol of the engineer's profession in the same way the stethoscope is that of the medical profession.[citation needed]

German rocket scientist Wernher von Braun bought two Nestler slide rules in the 1930s. Ten years later he brought them with him when he moved to the U.S. after World War II to work on the American space effort. Throughout his life he never used any other slide rule. He used his two Nestlers while heading the NASA program that landed a man on the moon in July 1969.[25]

Aluminium Pickett-brand slide rules were carried on Project Apollo space missions. The model N600-ES owned by Buzz Aldrin that flew with him to the moon on Apollo 11 was sold at auction in 2007.[26] The model N600-ES taken along on Apollo 13 in 1970 is owned by the National Air and Space Museum.[27]

Some engineering students and engineers carried ten-inch slide rules in belt holsters, a common sight on campuses even into the mid-1970s. Until the advent of the pocket digital calculator, students also might keep a ten- or twenty-inch rule for precision work at home or the office[28] while carrying a five-inch pocket slide rule around with them.

In 2004, education researchers David B. Sher and Dean C. Nataro conceived a new type of slide rule based on prosthaphaeresis, an algorithm for rapidly computing products that predates logarithms. However, there has been little practical interest in constructing one beyond the initial prototype

I used to use the IR slide rule, until I was able to program it into programmable calculator. A rule that calculated most of the needed IR parameters. Peak wavelength for a black body temperature.

https://www.sliderulemuseum.com/isrm/ajcoleman/

It is now trivial to work these equations using a computer or programmable calculator. Prior to the advent of such tools, one would typically rely on either tables and charts from handbooks, or a speciallized calculator slide chart, such as this one made by General Electric. While not the only slide chart for these problems, it was perhaps the most common.

The Pickett Model 17 was a "real" slide rule made for doing similar calculations. It was produced for Electo Optical Industries, a manufacturer of infrared test equipment. Rod Lovett has excellent scans of this rule here. In addition to standard C/D scales, the rule provides scales for temperature and wavelength/frequency conversion, and scales for energy calculations in both watts and photons.

In the late 1980's, Perrygraph produced an updated version of this rule. The one pictured was sold through the Infrared Information Analysis Center, a military information repository. Judson Infrared, a detector manufacturer, gave a blue version of this rule away as a promotional item.
 
The vector log log slide rule that preceded electronic calculators was very powerful. Arbitrary roots and exponents, and easy vector and trig calculations.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom